Interpretation of airborne gamma ray spectrometry data from Sudbury, Ontario

CIM Bulletin, Vol. 87, No. 977, 1994

V. Singh1, W.M. Moon, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Hugh G. Miller, Department of Earth Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. Johns, Newfoundland, and C.-S. So2, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Digital image processing and enhancement techniques have been applied to airborne gamma ray spectrometry data from Sudbury, Ontario. These results have been correlated and compared with the available geological maps to evaluate their usefulness for identifying lithological units. Digital processing allows the correlation of various data sets, and different combinations of images can be tested and viewed as a composite image. Composite images with pseudo-colours provide an opportunity to analyze and correlate information that is not otherwise apparent in individual images. Principal component analysis has been applied to the gamma ray spectrometry data to evaluate their efficacy and relative information contents of the measured and computed data.

Keywords: Exploration, Gamma ray spectroscopy, Image processing, Radio-elements images, Surveys.