Polarimetric SAR Signatures for Characterizing Geological Units in the Canadian Arctic

This study investigates the polarimetric radar signatures of geological units in the Canadian Arctic to characterize their physical surface properties. It focuses on the Tunnunik and Haughton meteorite impact structures using RADARSAT-2 quad polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. The geol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of selected topics in applied earth observations and remote sensing 2019-11, Vol.12 (11), p.4406-4414
Main Authors: Choe, Byung-Hun, Osinski, Gordon R., Neish, Catherine D., Tornabene, Livio L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arctic
Backscattering
Canadian Arctic geology
Coefficient of variation
Correlation coefficient
Correlation coefficients
Ellipticity
Geology
Height
Lidar
Mathematical analysis
Meteorite collisions
Ocean surface topography
Orientation
pedestal height
Polar environments
Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar
polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) signature
Polarization
Radar
Radar polarimetry
Radar signatures
Radarsat
SAR (radar)
standard deviation of linear copolarizations (SDLP)
Surface properties
Surface roughness
Synthetic aperture radar
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Summary:This study investigates the polarimetric radar signatures of geological units in the Canadian Arctic to characterize their physical surface properties. It focuses on the Tunnunik and Haughton meteorite impact structures using RADARSAT-2 quad polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. The geological units show different three-dimensional (3-D) polarimetric SAR signature plots (i.e., radar backscattering responses according to the orientation and the ellipticity of a polarization state). We analyzed the quantitative relationship between the polarimetric SAR signatures of the geological units and their surface roughness. The pedestal height and the standard deviation of linear copolarization responses (SDLP) were calculated from the 3-D copolarization power signature plot, and then compared to in situ surface roughness measurements derived from LiDAR scanned high-resolution surface topography. The results show that the pedestal height has a positive correlation coefficient of ~0.6 with surface roughness, while the SDLP has a negative correlation coefficient of ~0.8 with surface roughness. The variation between the different polarization responses is highly dependent on the surface roughness of the geological units. The SDLP is thus suggested as a promising parameter to characterize surface roughness, in addition to the pedestal height that has been commonly used.
ISSN:1939-1404
2151-1535
DOI:10.1109/JSTARS.2019.2946944