Extraction and analysis of lineaments in west Alborz area using SRTM 90m data and GIS

Abstract

Morphological analysis of topographic features, especially lineaments, has been used in tectonic and structural studies for a long time. These studies are considered to be the basis of tectonic analysis. Detecting and enhancing these features in an area like the western part of the Alborz, which is covered by vegetation, was done by use of SRTM 90 m data. To extract lineaments we used various image processing and enhancement techniques on images and three different approaches including manual, semi-automatic and automatic lineament extraction were adopted. Then the lineament layers, obtained from these methods were overlaid to produce a final lineament map. In this way we were able to detect and enhance lineaments and prepare density and intersection maps using GIS software, which enabled us to provide a good view of the structural geology of the area.