Mapping Lithium-Bearing Pegmatite With Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) Hyperspectral Imaging of Jingerquan Li-Be-Nb-Ta Pegmatite Deposit, Eastern Tianshan, NW China

Lithium (Li) is growing in importance and demand in several industrial applications, such as portable electric devices, electric vehicles, and hybrid electric vehicles. Li-rich pegmatites are one of the main sources of Li production in the world, so low-cost and high-efficiency exploration using remote sensing has become an important means for promoting the discovery of Li resources. Although imaging spectroscopy has great potential for Li-rich pegmatites identification and regional delineation, due to the limitations of resolution and data acquisition, the exploration of the Earth's surface at various scales on a variety of platforms requires further research. The purpose of this study is to use a ground-based HySpex imaging hyperspectrometer to map pegmatite zones directly, developing a new approach for mineralized pegmatite exploration. To achieve this, we present the minimum wavelength mapper (MWM), which combines the position and depth information of the deepest absorption feature, to give a per-pixel overview map of the Jingerquan Li-Be-Nb-Ta pegmatite deposit pit and heap. The results show that images between 2100 and 2450 nm provide useful information about mineral assemblages that display strong spectral features, such as Li-rich pegmatites, Li-poor pegmatites and alteration, and their spatial distribution at the surface in areas covered by the imagery. The wavelength position and the depth of Al-OH can provide an overview of the mineral assemblages and abundances, to rapidly classify possible regions of interest for further analysis.