A COMPARISON OF ASTER AND LANDSAT TM IMAGERY, BOU AZZER INLIER, MOROCCO

This undergraduate research project assesses the utility of ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) and Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) remote sensing data in the Bou Azzer inlier, Morocco. In addition, field spectral reflectance data and X-ray diffraction data of rock types within the Bou Azzer inlier are presented. The Bou Azzer inlier is one of a number of erosional inliers within the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco. These erosional inliers expose Late Proterozoic volcanic arc (Saghro inlier), forearc basin and accretionary melange assemblages (Siroua and Bou Azzer) recording a Pan African collision associated with the assembly of Gondwana ~ 600Ma. The Bou Azzer inlier exposes a blueschist-bearing ophiolitic melange. The melange marks the former location of a northward-dipping Late Proterozoic subduction zone separating the Saghro arc to the north with the West African Craton to the south. Through analysis of remote sensing data sets, as well as field spectral reflectance and laboratory data, we are assessing improvements to tectonic interpretations of this region. Improvements will be manifest in increased lithologic discrimination of individual rock units, mineralized zones and structural lineaments associated with the Pan African suture zone assemblages.