Automatic Lineaments Mapping and Extraction in Relationship to Natural Hydrocarbon Seepage in Ugwueme, South-Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

The study focus on the integration of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System for identification and delineation of lineaments in relation to natural hydrocarbon seepage, which occur in Ugwueme, South-Eastern Nigeria. To achieve this objective, remotely sensed data (ASTER Digital Elevation Model and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS) were used to depict the surface expression of faults, folds and fractures which are expressed in the form of lineaments. The global positioning system (GPS) was also used for ground verification. The geology map of the study area, which is elucidated in the geology of Nigeria was used to show the distribution of rocks and other geologic structures. The delineation of lineament features was done automatically with the PCI Geomatica while the Rock ware was used to generate the Rose diagram for demonstration of the direction of the extracted lineaments. The classification of the lineaments density and the lineaments intersection analysis were categorized as very low, low, moderate, high and very high classes respectively. Areas classified as very high to high lineaments density are potential zone, which act as conduits for hydrocarbon seepage. The result shows that a total lineament frequency of 947 km and a total lineament length of 946 km were delineated from the satellite data. The result further shows that areas with high lineaments density are concentrated in the southwest, south, central and northern part of the study area while areas with low lineament density were found within the eastern part of Ugwueme. The Rose diagram highlight the major trend in the (NE-SW), (N-S) and (NW-SE) directions, and the minor trend in the (W-E) direction. These directional trends depict the directions of lineaments which act as conduits zones for hydrocarbon seepage in the region. The overall findings of the study shows that lineament density, lineament intersection and rose diagrams are concepts applicable in hydrocarbon oil and gas seepages.

Prospects of Geoinformatics in Analyzing Spatial Heterogeneities of Microstructural Properties of a Tectonic Fault

“…Directional filters are applied to the image using a convolution process by means of constructing a window, as a rule a (3 × 3) pixels box (Table 2) of Sobel kernel filters (Table 3). Sobel kernels generate an effective and faster method for evaluating lineaments (linear objects) in four principal directions [88][89][90][91].…”

New Targets of Potential Mining Interest Using Gravimetric and Satellite Data: Case Study of Hercynian Rehamna Massif, Morocco

“…It provide a excellent support for mineral exploration through hydrothermal alteration mapping and faults detection. To enhance geological lineaments, several manual, semi-automatic, and automatic techniques were developed (Gannouni and Gabtni, 2015;Bonetto et al, 2017, Enoh et al, 2021Ahmadi and Pekkan, 2021).…”

Lineament Domain Analysis to Unravel Tectonic Settings on Planetary Surfaces: Insights from the Claritas Fossae (Mars)

“…Regionally sized lineaments (with lengths of the order of hundreds to thousands of kilometers) detected on synthetic scaled images of deformed regions record the signature of tectonic deformations, thus providing a useful tool to highlight their geotectonic evolution. Azimuthal and spatial analyses of lineaments provides fundamental insights to applied studies, such as the characterization of hydrothermal fluid circulation [15,16] and groundwater fractured reservoirs [17][18][19], assessment of hydrocarbon potential in oil fields [20,21], characterization of areas with high landslide susceptibility [22,23], and investigation of the structural settings of seismically and volcanically active regions [24][25][26], as well as to unravel the tectonic evolution of different planetary surfaces [13,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. During the last decades, quoting [35], "definitions and theories on the origin of lineaments have been almost as numerous as the lines themselves" (see also [36] for a review on the various definitions of lineaments since [37]).…”