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Development of an Analytical Method for Ground-based Multi-spectral Mapping: The Deepwater Deposits at Big Rock Quarry, Arkansas Mariana I. Olariu*?, John F. Ferguson?, Carlos L.V. Aiken?, and Mohamed G. Abdel-Salam? ?Geosciences Department, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, FO 21, Richardson, TX 75083-0688 ?University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, MO 65409-0410 This study assesses how well and under what conditions sandstone may be detected versus shale in a deepwater sedimentary succession using ground-based remote sensing techniques. Multi-spectral images of the outcrop at Big Rock, Arkansas were co-registered and displayed in Red-Green-Blue colour space to create false colour images that are useful for highlighting lithologic variation. Remote sensing analysis for geologic mapping is common, but here it is applied to digital acquisition from the ground at close range, obliquely to demonstrate its use in detailed outcrop mapping. Analyses of the spectral characteristics of sandstone and shale samples over the visible, near infrared and thermal infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum identified spectral responses of these sedimentary rocks indicating that these rocks can be discriminated using the information contained over the thermal interval. Normal color images were acquired using a conventional high-resolution digital camera and infrared images using a thermal infrared camera. Recently available, handheld, infrared cameras have a spectral range of 1 to 20 μm and can map rocks at wavelengths that usually can not be used when remotely measuring spectra through the Earth’s atmosphere due to the presence of absorption bands. However from the ground this is possible and a suite of images from visible through thermal infrared of this outcrop have been used to discriminate lithology. Keywords: multi-spectral, ground-based infrared thermal image, deepwater, lithologic mapping *Corresponding author. Email: mjx011000@utdallas.edu 1. Introduction