Lithological mapping of ophiolitic rocks from southern part of the Sivas Basin (Turkey) using ASTER imagery

: The east-west extended Sivas Basin in central-eastern Anatolia is a foreland basin that formed after the obduction of the Tethyan ophiolite during the late Cretaceous and is also a north-verging fold-and-thrust belt. The basement rocks of the basin represent mainly sedimentary (Mesozoic platform-type carbonates) and late Cretaceous Divriği ophiolitic complex. As the ophiolitic rocks are affected by intense tectonic processes, field-based mapping studies require long processes and costs. The study tests to reveal the lithological features of the ophiolitic complex outcropping around the Ulaş district of the Sivas Province using remote sensing methods and techniques. Due to arid climatic conditions and rare vegetation cover in the region, almost all outcrops of the basin rocks can be separated by spectral enhancement methods easily. Band ratio (BR), spectral indices (SI), decorrelation stretch (DS), principal component analysis (PCA), and support vector machine (SVM) on Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data were used in this research. BR, PCA, DC, and SI techniques clearly distinguish the Divriği Ophiolitic Complex from the basement and cover sedimentary rocks. SVM distinguishes the chromite-bearing dunites from the other ophiolite-related rock units. According to image analysis performances, it has been observed that the rocks of the Divriği ophiolitic complex can be differentiated in more detail compared to a 1/100.000 scaled geological map of the region.