The University of Alabama College of Engineering Bureau of Engineering Research
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING BUREAU OF ENGINEERING RESEARCH U,"lmade available under NASA sPonrsl q-0n the interesid ie dis- ,.4N FINAL REPORT Somination of Ladh fesources Survey au Program informa,"on 'j.jioo ut liability So VOLUME THREE r ony use made thereot." m of Contract NAS5-21876 PD INVESTIGATIONS USING DATA N o ALABAMA FROM ERTS-A Q) U 14 p .Principal Investigator " P-"DR. HAROLD R. HENRY Submitted to -O ...4 Goddard Space Flight Center 0M ( National Aeronautics and Space Administration S 0 Greenbelt, Maryland H Po August,, 1974 0 *C4 o l4 BER Report No. 179-122 -U N I V E R 8IT Y, ALABA M A 35486 44. INVESTIGATIONS USING DATA IN ALABAMA FROM ERTS-A FINAL REPORT VOLUME THREE Contract NAS5-21876 GSFC Proposal No. 271 Principal Investigator DR. HAROLD R. HENRY GSFC ID UN604 Submitted to Goddard Space Flight Center National Aeronautics and Space Administration Greenbelt, Maryland Submitted by Bureau,.of Engineering Research The University of Alabama. University, Alabama August, 19i4 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA STUDIES James A. Drahovzal SECTION TWELVE of VOLUME THREE INVESTIGATIONS USING DATA IN ALABAMA FROM ERTS-A CONTENTS SECTION TWELVE INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 1 LINEAMENTS ......................................................... 24 A COMPARISON OF LINEAMENTS AND FRACTURE TRACES TO JOINTING IN THE APPALACHIAN PLATEAU OF ALABAMA -- DORA-SYLVAN SPRINGS AREA .... 146 LINEAMENT ANALYSIS OF ERTS-1 IMAGERY OF THE ALABAMA PIEDMONT ...... 181 LINEAMENT ANALYSIS IN THE CROOKED CREEK AREA, CLAY AND RANDOLPH COUNTIES, ALABAMA ......................................... 209 GEOCHEMICAL EVALUATION OF LINEAMENTS ............................... 226 HYDROLOGIC EVALUATION AND APPLICATION OF ERTS DATA ................ 404 A COMPARISON OF SINKHOLE, CAVE, JOINT AND LINEAMENT ORIENTATIONS .. 440 GRAVITY STUDIES ACROSS LINEAMENTS MAPPED FROM ERTS IMAGERY ........ 452 APPENDIX. BASIC GRAVITY DATA ...................................... 490 MISCELLANEOUS ERTS-1 STUDIES ....................................... 499 PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS OF ALABAMA .................................... 519 TIDAL MARSH INVENTORY ............................................. 532 SECTION THIRTEEN APPENDIX I. SIGNIFICANCE OF SELECTED LINEAMENTS IN ALABAMA ....... 1 APPENDIX II. A SMALL-SCALE INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR REMOTELY SENSED DATA .......................................... 24 APPENDIX III. REMOTE SENSING OF EARTH RESOURCES IN ALABAMA: A NEW ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVE ..................... 34 APPENDIX IV. DETECTION OF SHORELINE CHANGES FROM ERTS-1 DATA ..... 37 APPENDIX V. ERTS IMAGERY FOR FLOODED AND FLOOD-PRONE AREA MAPPING: SOUTHWEST ALABAMA .......................... 56 APPENDIX VI. STATE OF ALABAMA, UNCONTROLLED ERTS-1 MOSAIC ....... 65 APPENDIX VII. THE REMOTE-SENSING PROGRAM OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, OF ALABAMA ............. .................. .. 66 APPENDIX VIII. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LINEAMENTS IN THE ALABAMA APPALACHIANS ............................. 94 APPENDIX IX. REMOTE SENSING OF GEOLOGIC HAZARDS IN ALABAMA ...... 96 ERTS-1 RESEARCH AND THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA James A. Drahovzal INTRODUCTION This report describes the analysis and use of ERTS-1 data by the Geological Survey of Alabama (GSA) from August 1972 to July 13, 1974. It includes a discussion of the history of the research and the data problems encountered, the organizational aspects of the project, the personnel, the data handling sys- tem, and the publications and oral presentations resulting from the research. In addition, it discusses the user-oriented activities resulting largely from the project. Finally, the technical papers presented in this volume are introduced. RESEARCH AND OPERATIONAL APPROACHES AND DATA PROBLEMS Project History and Data Problems Prior to the launch of ERTS-1, the GSA had been active in remote sensing investigations.With the exception of the use of low-altitude black and white photographs for base maps and in standard photogeologic interpretation, GSA first became active in the field of remote sensing in the latter half of 1969. It was at this time that GSA undertook a geologic and hydrologic study of Apollo 9 photographs (Powell, Copeland, and Drahovzal, 1970). Follow-up studies were done by Powell and LaMoreaux, 1971; Drahovzal and Neathery, 1972; Smith and Drahovzal, 1972; and Smith, Drahovzal, and Lloyd, 1973. The initial work stimulated remote sensing research at GSA. As a direct result of some of the early Apollo 9 research, SLAR and other types of data were gathered in the vicinity of Logan-Martin Dam on the Coosa River where a fracture system was found to be contributing to leakage under the structure (Alverson, 1969; 1970; Spigner, 1969; Bailey, 1970; Drahovzal, Neathery, and Wielchowsky, 1974). In addition, low-altitude data was utilized in the selection of sites for construction in carbonate terranes (Newton and Hyde, 1971; Newton, Copeland, and Scarbrough, 1973) and in the location of lineaments and fracture traces to investigate their relationship to limestone hydrology (Sonderegger, 1970). The members of GSA's ERTS group remained in the pre-launch phase until the first data was received. The formal activities of GSA in the NASA-supported ERTS-1 research began August 14, 1972. Much of the activity early in the project, before imagery was received, consisted of familiarizing the participating workers with the Apollo 9 photography of east-central Alabama and the remote-sensing literature. The Apollo 9 research had progressed about as far as it could and on August 22, 1972 the Survey's final paper dealing with the subject was delivered at the 24th International Geological Congress in Montreal (Drahovzal and Neathery, 1972). It was at the Congress that T. L. Neathery and J. A. Drahovzal of the Survey's ERTS team saw their first ERTS imagery. On September 28, 1972, J. A. Drahovzal saw the first ERTS-1 data for Alabama at Goddard but was not permitted to take it back to Alabama for study. The 12-2 first ERTS-1 imagery to arrive in the State to our knowledge was on October 10, 1972, when the Geological Survey of Alabama received imagery through another ERTS-1 project (EROS 14-08- 001-13377, User Acceptance and Implementation of ERTS-A Data in Alabama). In the later project, the Survey received limited ERTS-1 data for the state from the EROS Data Center through the EROS Evaluation and Experiments Office at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. It was not until November 7, 1972, that the Geological Survey received the first ERTS-1 imagery through this project. The delay was most -frustrating to all the investigators involved and served to delay the project considerably. To add to frustrations, the quality of the first imagery received, and most of it' throughout the project, was substantially inferior to that received through other projects and sources (see bi-monthly reports for specifics). A special report (Drahovzal, J. A., April 2, 1973, Special Report: Quality of NASA-Provided ERTS-1 Imagery) was written comparing the quality of 9 x 9 inch positive prints received from the EROS program and from Goddard. The former was greatly superior to the latter based on the same ERTS-1 frames. In response, Mr. Bernard Peavey of NDPF at Goddard supplied a few frames which were more useful to our research. At Mr. Peavey's suggestion, all near-cloud-free or cloudless data up to that time was placed on a retrospective order. To this date, the data, to our knowledge, has not been received. Early attempts to secure two copies of the ERTS-1 imagery 12-3 for the project failed. In light of the large number of workers at the Survey as well as in the other institutions and agencies involved and their wide separation (two in Tuscaloosa, one at Dauphin Island and one in Huntsville), access to the data supplied by Goddard was limited. To partially solve this problem, Marshall Space Flight Center agreed to copy 9 x 9 inch positive transparencies for Geological Survey use. Although this was helpful, the extended turn-around time and degradation of the imagery greatly limited the usefulness of the data. To help mitigate the problem, the Geological Survey requested 70 mm negatives. It found that the Goddard-provided hegatives were equivalent to or of higher quality than those provided by the EROS Program. The negatives enabled us to produce 1:1,000,000 scale positive prints that were much more suitable to our objectives. Some limited 1:250,000 and 1:500,000 scale imagery was also produced in this fashion at the Survey's photo laboratory, but most of this was limited to a 11 x 14-inch format. Some of the negatives were sent to a commercial firm, Plunkett Blueprint in Atlanta for enlarging to 1:250,000 scale (40 x 40 inch prints). At the same time 1:250,000 ERTS-1 coverage of the state was ordered from the EROS Data Center. The products received from Plunkett were comparable to 40 x 40-inch prints secured from the EROS Data Center. Turn-around time with Plunkett was less than 10 days, the cost was $10 and the product was within acceptable limits of being a true 1:250,000 reproduction. The EROS data on the other hand cost $9, was printed on a higher grade paper, 12-4 but required as much as 3 months turn-around time and was not so nearly precise scale-wise. By September, 1973, GSA had most of the areas of the state covered by bands 5, 6 or 7, 1:250,000 scale imagery. It had been concluded earlier that most of our work would utilize the 1:250,000 scale both for reasons of convenience and interpretability; therefore at that time we were ready to begin our major effort in the project. Nearly all of the data used in the project was derived either through the EROS project mentioned previously, purchased from EROS Data Center, reproduced at Plunkett Blueprint, or re- produced in our photo laboratory. Only a very small percentage of the data supplied by Goddard through this project was of acceptable quality for our purposes. The 70 mm negatives were a notable exception. The radiometric precision of the Goddard prints (Peavey, oral communication, 1973) from a photo interpreter's point of view is less important than the clear depiction of earth features.