Regional lithological mapping in the Tibetan plateau and surrounding area using aster data

The development of methods for mapping lithology and structure has been the main goals of geological remote sensing research. With the successful development of mineralogic indices, e.g., Quartz Index (QI), Carbonate Index (CI), Mafic Index (MI) based on the ASTER multispectral thermal infrared (TIR) data, which have demonstrated the usefulness and effectiveness of ASTER TIR data on lithologic mapping, we have produced the regional mosaic mapping of the indices covering wide area in the semi-arid to arid regions across the globe. Here in this paper, we show the method of making the regional lithological mapping with the indices defined for ASTER data, present example results of mapping covering a part of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding area, and then make some geological discussions on the results.