Mapping of the Regolith of New Caledonia with Airborne Hyperspectral Remote Sensing

Recently, regolith mapping based on hyperspectral remote sensing has stirred up a growing interest, in particular for mining exploration purposes. For an island like New Caledonia, which nickel resources are one of the most abundant on Earth, and which economy is mainly based on nickel exploitation, regolith mapping is of first interest. In 2010 airborne hyperspectral remote sensing data were acquired for the first time over several mining sites of New Caledonia. At the same time, field spectrometradiometric measurements were made on the same sites. One site was selected to evaluate the potential of airborne hyperspectral remote sensing for the mapping of the regolith. Combining the analysis of the field measurements and the processing of the airborne data, we managed to map the regolith with great results. In the following we present broadly the geological context of New Caledonia, the dataset acquired, the method developped and the results.