Comparison of airborne and spaceborne TIR data for studying volcanic geothermal areas

Abstract:

Mapping and quantifying the surface expression of geothermal heat flux in volcanic geothermal areas is important for establishing baseline thermal activity to better detect and understand any future changes that may be related to hydrothermal or volcanic processes, or human activities. Volcanic geothermal areas are often too large and inaccessible for only field-based thermal monitoring, so thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing tools are also used. High resolution (sub-meter) airborne TIR imagery can be used for detailed, quantitative analyses of small, subtle geothermal features. Airborne data acquisitions have the advantage of being able to be acquired under ideal conditions (e.g., predawn, cloud-free), but the disadvantage of high costs – thus precluding high-frequency monitoring. Satellite-based TIR data from the Landsat 8 platform are freely available and can be acquired regularly for change detection, but are acquired with coarser spatial resolution (e.g., 100-m pixels), and thus are not as sensitive to subtle thermal characteristics.

Two geothermal areas with clear, nighttime TIR data from nearly concurrent (within days) airborne and spaceborne instruments were investigated: Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, WY; and the Casa Diablo geothermal field, near Mammoth Lakes, CA. At Norris Geyser Basin, the area covered by high-resolution airborne TIR imagery is almost entirely geothermally heated ground, with hundreds of fumaroles, hot springs, and thermal drainages – although some non-geothermal background is exposed. With the coarser resolution Landsat 8 data, there are thermal variations within the smaller area covered by the airborne data, but the entire area appears to be thermally anomalous with respect to the non-geothermal background outside the basin. In the geothermal field around the Casa Diablo geothermal site, there are numerous, small areas of geothermal heating that are clearly distinguishable above the background by the high-resolution airborne nighttime TIR imaging. Most of the thermal radiance contrast in the Landsat 8 TIR image is due to slope, surface cover type, and albedo, but there are some very subtle variations in thermally emitted radiance that are spatially coincident with the thermally anomalous areas identified with the airborne data.