FROM SPACE TO THE CLOUD - EMIT IMAGING SPECTROSCOPY DATA AVAILABLE FOR GEOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS

NASA JPL’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) is the newest imaging spectrometer on the International Space Station (ISS), with the goal of assessing the mineral composition of exposed geologic surfaces around the globe. It will achieve this by assessing the spectral reflectance characteristics of bare surfaces to match them to reflectance properties of known mineralogies. This requires measuring reflected solar radiation in the visible to short-wave infrared (VSWIR) region of the spectrum. EMIT captures 285 bands between 380 and 2500 nm, with a spectral resolution of ~7.5 nm and a spatial resolution of 60m, targeting arid dust source regions between 52° N and 52° S latitude. VSWIR imaging spectroscopy data from EMIT are being used to meet the mission goal of mapping surface mineralogy, as well as detecting greenhouse gasses, and studying algal blooms, snowpack, and fire risk in forest ecosystems. Three products are currently available from the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), including 1) at-sensor calibrated radiance (EMITL1BRAD), 2) estimated surface reflectance (EMITL2ARFL), and 3) estimated mineral identification (EMITL2BMIN). Future data products from the EMIT mission include aggregated mineral composition maps as well as Earth System Model runs. The availability of EMIT data products in NASA’s Earthdata Cloud combined with the public availability of the science data system codebase (started during the development phase) ushers in a new era for open science and new territory for geoinformatics. Due to the high spectral density of imaging spectroscopy data, EMIT naturally nudges individuals away from a conventional data download model towards a cloud native data processing model with the capacity for large scale data processing and analysis. EMIT’s broadscale accessibility also enables integration with other datasets. Here we present examples and uses of EMIT data relevant to the geological community.