Application of Principal Components Analysis for Exploration of Alteration Mapping of Inland Placer Minerals between Kayalpatinam and Ovari: Southern Tamilnadu coast, India

The digital image processing plays an significant role in inland placer mineral resource assessment. The IRS-P6-LISS III imagery is used to identify the hydrothermal alteration zones for inland placer mineral exploration. Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the most commonly adopted feature reduction techniques in image processing. By use of this technique to precisely map the inland placer minerals like ilmenite, rutile, sillimanite, zircon, monazite, garnet and almandine in southern Tamilnadu coastal stretch. PCA based band ratio of obtained from the image spectra (PCA bands I, II, III &IV in RGB)and verified against other conventional methods. The spectral signatures are used to construct new PCA band ratio are validated through field observation as well a USGS mineral spectrum. The derived PCA based analyzed output and field survey results indicates that the method is suitable for identifying alteration zones of inland placer mineral deposits and it is a complementary tool for inland placer mineral exploration in similar areas elsewhere.