Mapping of the Kalahari basin in southern Angola using airborne geophysics and remote sensing methods
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21701/bolgeomin/136.1/005Keywords:
Kalahari, Remote sensing, Radiometric, Airborne geophysics, Geological mappingAbstract
The National Geological Plan of Angola (PLANAGEO) has involved an important cartographic challenge: to recognise and sample a vast territory that is difficult to access in limited time, with the possibility of intercepting anti-personnel and anti-tank mines scattered in the field, among other risks. These vicissitudes become more significant the more remote the region is, as in the Owambo basin, located in the southern Angola. The also named Cuvelai-Etosha basin is one of the main depocenters of the Kalahari Basin, filled by the Cenozoic sediments of three major fluvial-deltaic systems: Cunene, Cubango and Cuvelai. The inactivity of the first two systems, the lack of outcrops and poor lateral continuity of facies have made lithostratigraphic definition and geological mapping even more difficult. During the first phases of the project, the regolith map was made, based on the methodology of CRC LEME (Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Environment and Mineral Exploration). The use of band rationing and Directed Principal Component Analysis to process the multispectral Landsat 8 imagery proposed by this methodology, in combination with radiometric images acquired from the regional aerogeophysical survey conducted in PLANAGEO, proved to be an essential technique for the mapping of the large deltaic systems of the Owambo basin and the differentiation of geological units within these systems.
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