Landsat-8 satellite data for geological mapping of plateau state, North Central Nigeria

Abstract

We are living in an evolving planet that has been transforming for a long period of time and it continuous to. The earth surface and under is made up of Rocks, Sediments, Minerals and many more. The representation of these features graphically is the geological map. The use of remote sensing satellite data has been greatly employed in the past decades to produce and update these maps, which are always a pre-requisite for interpretation, discrimination of rocks, sediment, and soil units. In this study, Landsat-8 image data was used to produce an updated geological map of Plateau state, north central Nigeria that has scarcity of it. Four scenes of Landsat-8 satellite image data were processed and mosaicked into a composite image, and the boundary line of the state was superimposed on the composite image in the ArcGIS environment (Figure 2). An RGB colour composite of bands (7, 5, and 3) and Band ratio (7/4, 6/5 and 5/3) of the VNIR and SWIR bands of Landsat-8 were used to reveal vegetation, lithological units, and hydrothermal alteration zones. The consequence of the study is the identification of predominant biotite granitic rocks that are distributed along the Jos-Bukuru complex and underlying almost half of the entire state. Moreover, the other rock complexes such as basalts and rhyolitic volcanic rocks were also discriminated. This study indicates that Landsat-8 image data has great capability to discriminate lithological units and the production of up-To-date geological map of Plateau state, Nigeria at regional scale and could be applicable in other regions of the African continent.