Distinguished A-------,

Walter R. Fillippone is a consultant on seismic velocity interpretation and

exploration projects in Placentia, CA. He holds a BA degree in geology from
Marietta (OH) College and an MS degree in geophysics from the California Inst. of
Technology. He worked on velocity data for United Geophysical Co. for 11 years in
the Pasadena, CA, office. During 1955-84, he worked for Union Oil Co. of
California (UNOCAL) as staff geophysicist, exploration manager for the Rocky
Mountain area and the Glacier Div., and senior research associate. In this last
position, he worked on computer techniques to assist in the interpretation of
seismic and magnetic data and was UNOCAL's representative to the GEOSAT
Committee (user companies' advisory committee to NASA) and remote sensing
study groups.
Practical Applications
of Remote Sensing
Walter R. Fillippone, Geophysical Exploration Consultant
Summary. Though remote sensing has been available in many forms for decades, it became much more
available and interesting with the advent of the Earth Resources Technology Satellite-I (ERTS-l), later renamed
LANDSAT -I, in 1972. Since that time, hundreds of thousands of images detected by satellites have been
transmitted to base stations at strategic locations around the world and recorded in digital format for further
processing. These data have been made available to the entire free world for agricultural purposes. The large
areas covered by each image and the repeatability of the images on subsequent passes have made them useful
additionally in navigation, engineering studies of ice floes and harbors, studies of sedimentary deposition near
river deltas, and the interpretation of geologic features too large to visualize on conventional aerial photographs.
This paper highlights applications of readily available, remotely sensed data without the need for more
sophisticated processing. It points out some techniques used to interpret events on the imagery that relate to
subsurface features that are important in the exploration and development of oil and gas fields and makes use of
analogies to known geologic features. The Appendix lists the current sources of the various remotely sensed
data.
Introduction
Remote sensing of the environment and the earth has
been in use for many years. Airborne instrumentation
for photography that uses special films, radiation
detection, magnetic and electromagnetic
measurements, and radar are a few examples. Each
has been used successfully in exploration for oil, gas,
and minerals.
Surveys have been made with infrared (lR) film for
thermal radiation detection of the earth's surface to
locate geothermal sources and some minerals
associated with recent vulcanism. These IR surveys,
conducted at night from low-flying aitcraft, were
particularly hazardous and not very useful because of
turbulence and poor navigation. With the addition of
radar instrumentation, the surveys wete much safer
and were more accurately assembled into useful,
carefully registered strip maps.
Copyright 1986 Socie1y of Petroleum Engineers
Journal of Petroleum Technology, January 1986
Aeromagnetic surveys were flown over most of the
basins of the world to provide reconnaissance maps.
Simultaneous aerial photography tied the magnetic
data to landmarks to make maps that could be used to
locate magnetic minerals or minerals associated with
magnetic rocks. These surveys also were used to
calculate depth-to-basement maps that provided good
framework maps of the basin shape, basement faults,
and basement topographic structures related to
anticlines and synclines in the overlying sediments.
Electromagnetic surveys have been used extensively
for the detection of the sulfide minerals, which tend
to be more conductive than the host rocks and most
sediments.
Sidescan radar has been in use for many years to
provide imagery of the surface and to find structures
related to the topography. These surveys have been
indispensible in the tropics, where aerial photography
and satellite imagery have been hampered by clouds
and fog that are present to some degree all of the
9
CANADA CENTRE FOR REMOTE SENSING
DEPARTMENT Of' ENERGV MlNS AHO RESOUACES
CENTRE CANADIEN DE TI:LI:DI:TECTION
I,IINtSTERE DE L ENEFIGI E DES ....NES T OES AESSOIJRCf S
Fig. 1-Map of Canada with tracks of LANDSAT 1 satellite.
time. Most of the islands in the South Pacific region
and in the Amazon basin region of South America
would be unmapped had it not been for the
application of radar mapping systems.
As useful as airborne instrumentation is in detailed
surveys, it has its drawbacks: (1) it covers only a
small area in each photograph; (2) continuous surveys
are subject to wind and turbulence effects; and (3) the
look angle with sidescan radar has much distortion in
areas of topographic relief, usuall y the areas of
interest.
Satellite and Space Imagery
In about 1960, the U. S. federal government became
interested in space travel to the moon and embarked
on a program through the National Aeronautics and
Space Admin. (NASA) to develop remote-sensing
instrumentation and vehicles . In testing these devices
over land test sites that simulated lunar conditions,
NASA discovered the response of microwave
radiation to vegetation and mineralization. In time,
these di scoveries were recognized as a means of
surveying the earth for agricultural , geologic,
hydrologic, and oceanographic data and NASA set up
the Earth Resources Survey Program. On July 23 ,
1972, the first satellite designed for this purpose was
launched in a near-polar , sun-synchronous orbit and
10
called ERTS-l (LANDSAT-I ). It was designed to
last 1 year, but continued to function well for
several years.
Remote sensing by satellite is not photography, but
is more like television recording in that the earth's
surface is scanned in small spots , or picture elements ,
called pixels, that have a specific location and a
finitely measured intensity value that is digitally
recorded, then transmitted to a base station for
storage and processing.
The satellite is in a near-circular orbit about 913
km [567 miles] above the surface of the earth and
makes one revolution around the earth every 103
minutes. On its downsweep from north to south, it is
scanning points on the earth's surface at about 9:30
a.m., local time, as the earth rotates eastward below
it. On its upsweep, it is in the shadow of the earth
and is not recording. On its next downsweep, the
earth has moved over by 17 scan widths. The next
day' s tracks will be adj acent to the previous day's
tracks with a small overlap at the equator. Every 18
days the orbit will repeat the sequence. In this
manner , temporal changes in vegetation, snow pack,
surface-water content , and ice conditions can be
recognized.
In the polar regions , the overlap of the scenes is
sufficient to show temporal changes on a daily basis
for 3 to 5 consecutive days. This makes it possible to
Journal of Petroleum Technology, January 1986
Fig. 2-Point Barrow, AK, area i mage from four LANDSAT 1 scenes.
monitor the movement of ice floes and their effect on
shipping and drilling platforms. The only obstacles to
these observations are cloud cover, ambient light, and
of course, the transmission of the data to a base
station.
The observed bandwidths of the LANDS A T
satellites cover two bands in the green and red
portions of the visible spectrum and two bands in the
near or reflective infrared. Band 4, in the 0.5- to
0.6-J.tm range, can penetrate water to tens of meters
depending upon the clarity of the water. Band 5, 0.6-
to 0.7-J.tm range, penetrates about half that amount;
Band 6, 0.7- to 0.8-J.tm range, less than I m [3.3 ft];
and Band 7,0.8- to 1.1-J.tm range, has no penetration
into water. With a suite of different bands for one
scene, one can make some estimates of the water-
bottom contours. In delta areas, the sediment load
and its direction of travel can be determined from an
inspection of the data. On land or on ice, the
response of Band 7 can detect areas of surface water
or saturation of the soil. Bands 6 and 7 are very
responsive to the reflection of the longer wavelengths
from live vegetation. This makes these bands very
useful for forestry and agriculture by identifying live
vs. dead trees or vegetation. Trees killed by parasites
can be detected readily from these images, and crops
can be identified to some degree by their response to
several bands.
As in most projects in exploration, a great deal of
interpretation is made by analogy to known objects,
Fig. 3-Gulf of Alaska area from three bands of a LANDSAT-1 image; note penetration of various wave lengths into the
water. Courtesy U. of Alaska.
Journal of Petroleum Technology, January 1986
II
Fig. 4-False-color composite image from Bands 4, 5, and 7, showing Mississippi delta area; note sediment loads in river
channels in Gulf of Mexico.
geologic structures, lithologies, and conditions.
Therefore, training areas of known conditions and
crops should be used in identifying similar character-
istics in nearby areas. Some mineralization can be de-
tected by the effect of the minerals on the vegetation,
such as poisoning by certain metals like copper or
zinc on certain trees or crops.
LANDSAT 2 was identical to LANDSAT 1, while
LANDSAT 3 had one additional channel, the thermal
infrared band at 10.4 to 12.5 /Lm, whIch measured
thermal emissivity rather than reflected infrared.
LANDSAT 4, or D, covered the same spectra, plus a
band in the shorter wavelengths in the visible
spectrum for marine observations and two bands in
the infrared that help in snow and cloud
differentiation and differentiation of clay types.
LANDS A T 4 was called a thematic mapper and had a
resolution of 30 m [98 ft] with coverage in spectral
bands from 0.45 to 0.52, 0.5 to 0.6, 0.63 to 0.69,
0.76 to 0.90, 1.55 to 1.75, 2.08 to 2.35, and 10.4 to
11.65 /Lm. LANDSATS 4 and 5 were identical, but
their tracks were 8 days apart. Their track spacing
was 172 km [107 miles] at the equator, and their scan
or scene width was 185 km [115 miles]. The satellites
repeated the same track every 16 days.
Perhaps the most useful aspect of the satellite
imagery is for photogeologic interpretation. The
imagery has an advantage over conventional airborne
photography in that each LANDSAT scene covers an
12
area of 34,225 km
2
[l3,214 sq miles], observed
under consistent light conditions and free of
turbulence. Large geologic features-such as basins,
faults, anticlines and synclines, mountain ranges,
lineaments, salt domes, volcanoes, and deltas-can be
encompassed in one scene rather than a complex
mosaic of several hundred photographs. The sweep of
the scanner is less than 6 0, which results in a small
amount of distortion at the outer east/west edges of
the scene. At the equator, there is about 14% of
sidelap of the scenes and greater than 50 % in the
polar regions. Current practices in the processing of
the data can provide very accurate registration and
geometric correction that make the resulting scenes
and enhanced-color composites extremely accurate
and useful for mapping and interpretation. The
resolution of the first three LANDSAT's data is about
80 m [260 ft] and includes about 4000 m
2
[1 acre]
per pixel, while LANDSAT 4 has resolution of 30 m
[100 ft], which represents an area of about 1000 m
2
[1,4 acre].
SPOT IMAGE is a French remote-sensing satellite
that will use fixed arrays of detectors and records in
three bands of the spectrum. The detectors can
acquire data out to 27 from the vertical, and the
data can be processed and corrected to produce
images similar to the LANDSAT data.
The shuttle spacecraft carried an experimental
shuttle imaging radar (SIR-A) on the first flight in
Journal of Petroleum Technology, January 1986
Fig. 5-U.S. west coast composite built from several hundred images and a geologic map
to show lineaments apparent on small-scale images.
1981. It has a 47 angle of incidence and 40-m
[I30-ft] ground resolution to acquire images for
geologic studies. A surprising result of these images
is the ability of the radar to penetrate arid sand dunes
to depths of several meters and to detect buried
drainage channels under the sand.
For a more detailed description of the construction
and performance of remote-sensing systems, please
see Ref. 1.
Some Interpretive Uses
of LANDSAT Imagery
Fig. 1 shows a map of Canada with an overprint of
the tracks of LANDSAT 1. Each scene constructed
from the transmitted data covers an area of about
34,200 km
2
[13,200 sq miles] in a trapezoid with
sides of about 185 km [115 miles]. At the latitude of
70 north, the tracks overlap each ground point 5
consecutive days as the satellite track advances about
25 miles/D [40 km/d]. If the atmosphere is cIoud-
free, any changes on the surface can be observed on
a daily basis.
Fig. 2 shows an area around Point Barrow, AK,
made from four scenes from LANDSAT 1. The scene
on the right is the first day of the sequence. Two
days later, the second scene was observed, and the
ice floes had moved the length of the long arrow,
about 34 km [21 miles]. The scene on the left was
observed the day following the scene in the middle
Journal of Petroleum Technology. January 1986
and shows arrows with lengths of 14 and 16 km [9
and 10 miles], all moving in a southwesterly direction
as a result of combined wind and sea current action
on the ice. Note also the ice that is firmly attached to
the coast and is not involved in the ice movement
farther offshore. This is called fast ice. Suites of
these scenes can be obtained for most locations in the
northern hemisphere for various times of the year to
study ephemeral effects for placement of platforms,
loading facilities, and the study of ice floe
movements.
Fig. 3 shows three images in the Gulf of Alaska
area from LANDSAT 1 to illustrate the penetration of
the various wave lengths into the water. Band 4 has
the greatest penetration and can observe fine
sediments at greater depths than Band 5, which can
define only the shallow sediment load. Bands 6 and 7
have little or no penetration and observe only the
surface debris and texture. It is evident that there is a
heavy load of sediment carried in the river outflow,
and that the shore currents are carrying it toward the
west.
Fig. 4 is a false-color composite made from Bands
4, 5, and 7 of the Mississippi delta and illustrates the
amount of sediment load being carried by the rivers
and the direction of transport when it reaches the
Gulf of Mexico. From this scene, it is evident that all
the sediments and nutrients are being carried by the
shore currents to the west, which implies that the
13
. "---l r .
......,...: .. -
GEO. r KELLY MAPS

P.O BOX 50129 PHON[ 9111-_-2838
TULSA. OKLA 74150
Fig. 6-0klahoma and Texas panhandles (including the Hugoton field) showing several lineaments.
better source and reservoir rocks should be west of
the delta. This is not an enhanced image. Much better
resolution can now be obtained from more recent
computer-enhanced images.
Bands 6 and 7 are quite useful for making base
maps because of the smaller amount of absorption of
the energy by moisture in the atmosphere. Bands 4
and 5, with their much shorter wavelengths, suffer
from scattering of the light from particles of dust and
moisture in the atmosphere and often appear hazy or
indistinct. Be sure to ask for computer-enhanced
imagery with improved registration for base-map
construction.
Fig. 5 is a composite of several hundred images of
the U.S. west coast and a geologic map at about the
same scale for identification purposes. This
illustration points out the lineaments that are evident
on small-scale images.
There is much controversy over lineaments and
their significance. I believe that the long lineaments
observed on these images are related to deep-seated
basement faulting, and that the longer they are, the
more involved are the basement rocks and the
continental granitic layer. I have marked several
lineaments with arrows and letters for identification,
but you may see many more and may derive some
correlation of those lineaments to known geologic
structures, oil and gas fields, minerals, faults, or
volcanic activity.
Lineament A-A is one that can be traced across
most of the continent and will also be referred to in
Fig. 6. It is implied by several surface phenomena,
such as the offset in the south end of San Francisco
Bay, a visible tonal change across the San Joaquin
Valley, coincidence with the Kings River Canyon,
offsets in the mountain ranges between Owens Lake
and Las Vegas, and correlation with the Las Vegas
14
shear zone. Note that in the San Joaquin Valley, most
of the hydrocarbon production south of this lineament
is oil while most of the production north of it is gas.
I relate this to the lineament's presence throughout
sedimentary deposition in the valley and believe it
represents rejuvenated faulting along this lineament
with the south part a deep marine embayment and the
north part, including the Sacramento Valley, a
shallow marine to nonmarine shelf. Lineament S-S is
the south portion of the San Andreas fault zone and
can be traced by the offsets in mountain ranges and
sediments and surface-color changes. The San
Andreas fault zone is composed of several branches,
all with right-lateral movement. It is bifurcated at San
Jose and one segment goes up through the middle of
the San Francisco peninsula while the other becomes
the Hayward fault that goes through Berkeley. This
bifurcation occurs near Lineament A-A.
Lineament M-M is related to the Mendocino
Escarpment and can be traced across California and
Nevada by offsets in mountain ranges and volcanic
activity. The arrows south of Lineament M-M are
along a lineament that connects the geothermal area at
Clear Lake, the intrusive of the Sutter Buttes, the
South Yuba River canyon, the Truckee River between
Reno and Fernley in Nevada, and offsets in several
mountain ranges east of Fernley.
Fig. 6 shows a map of the Oklahoma and Texas
panhandles with the traces of several lineaments
drawn across it. Lineaments A, B, C, and Dare
parallel lineaments projected from the west coast
imagery. Note that they are coincident with the gas
production of the Hugoton field, where gas
production is north of the lineament and oil produc-
tion is south of it, but not exclusively. Also, changes
in strike of the fields occur along these lineament
projections. I relate this to the presence of a
Journal of Petroleum Technology, January 1986
5
07-30 1
o 5 10
1.-1--:-7"'
mil e s
Fig. 7- Band 5 i mage of Casper, WY, area.
lineament-related fault system during deposition of the
sedimentary rocks .
Fig. 7 is a Band 5 image of a portion of a scene of
the Casper area, Wyoming. Several lineaments are
designated by connecting the coincident arrows and
noting the occurrence of apparent fault traces and
changes in tone along these lines . The intersection of
these lines with the structure in the lower right center
of the scene may be related to production cells in the
producing zones.
One might expect that faults that have great extent
on the surface would penetrate to at least half their
length into the subsurface. These lineaments can be
traced for at least 80 km [50 miles], which would
imply that they penetrate the granitic layer. If such is
the case, then the sediments should be interrupted by
fault planes, and an associated fault gouge would
provide a seal to horizontal migration of
hydrocarbons . The implied production cells are shown
in the insert in the lower right corner of the figure.
The insert can be traced and overlain on the structure
to see its relationship to the structure. Lineaments
have also been used to predict fracture porosity in
Journal of Petroleum Technology, January 1986
Fig. 8-0utline map of the U.S. showing a few earthquake
epicenters and a few lineaments.
areas where the reservoir rocks are brittle and
underlain and overlain by massive shale units. In
these cases, the brittle rocks fracture along the fault
planes, but the shales remain as impervious layers to
provide the source and trap for accumulating
hydrocarbons.
15
Fig. 8 is a map of a few earthquake epicenters and
a few lineaments that can be observed on the
composite LANDSAT imagery of the conterminous
U.S. The profusion of epicenters on the west coast
requires a detailed map to show the correlation, but
note that other significant earthquakes have occurred
along observable lineations, attesting to the deep-
seated source of the lineaments. The cluster of
epicenters at the intersection of several lineaments
near New Madrid, MO is also interesting. A
significant earthquake occurred there more than 100
years ago and changed the course of the Mississippi
River.
Source of Materials
There are many products available from remote-
sensing surveys, some of which are too esoteric to be
included in this review. Many universities are
conducting research into the uses of enhanced,
filtered, transformed, and statistically analyzed data in
gray tones and false color to discover ways to derive
more definitive information from remotely sensed
data. Considerable progress has been made and
greater benefits are promised. The principal limit to
these data from a geological standpoint is that they
are surface-derived and are useful for oil, gas, and
mineral exploration only where subsurface correlation
can be inferred. They are, however, certainly
indispensible in some applications. During 1985, the
distribution of these products was transferred to a
private enterprise in a gradual takeover that will have
continued government support for a period of 3
years. The Earth Resources Observation System
(EROS) Data Center remains the source for these
materials and information.
Acknowledgments
I thank the U.S. federal government for its support of
space research and for giving generously of its time,
money, and discoveries to aid underdeveloped
countries with these materials.
Reference
1. Manual of Remote Sensing. second edition, R.N. Colwell
(ed.), American Soc. of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing,
Falls Church, V A (1983).
Appendix-Remote Sensing Data Sources
Distributors of Remotely Sensed Data.
Earth Observation Satellite Co. (EOSAT), c/o EROS
Data Center, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, TWX No.
910-668-0310, Telephone 1-800-367-2801 (Ask for
user services.)
Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS), User
Assistance and Marketing Unit, 717 Belfast Road,
Ottawa, Ont., Canada KIA OY7, Telephone
613-995-1210
ESA-ESRIN, Earthnet User Services, Via Galileo
Galilei, 000 44 Frascati, Italy, Telephone
39-6-9401360, Telex 611295
Australia LANDSAT Station, 14-16 Ostley Court,
P.O. Box 28, Belconnen, A.C.T. 2616, Australia,
Telephone 062-515411, Telex 61510
16
SPOT IMAGE Corp., 1150 17th St. N.W., Suite
307, Washington, DC 20036, Telephone
202-293-1656, Telex-4993073
Processing and Image Analysis Companies.
General Electric Co., Earth Resources Applications,
4701 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706, Telephone
301-459-2900
Earth Satellite Corp. (EARTHSAT), 7222 47th St.,
Chevy Chase, MD 20815, Telephone 301-652-7130,
Telex 248618
Aero Service, 8100 Westpark, P.O. Box 1939,
Houston, TX 77001, Telephone 713-784-5800, Telex
775909
Universities With Remote Sensing Laboratories.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Dr.
Pasadena, CA 91109
U. of California
Geography Remote Sensing Unit
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
U. of Kansas
Remote Sensing Laboratory
2291 Irving Hill Dr.
Lawrence, KS 66045
U. of Michigan
Environmental Research Inst. of Michigan (ERIM)
P.O. Box 8618
Ann Arbor, MI 48107
U. of Nevada
MacKay School of Mines
Reno, NV 89557-0047
U. of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC
Purdue U.
Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing
(LARS)
1220 Potter Dr.
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Stanford U.
Dept. of Applied Earth Sciences
Stanford, CA 94305
Interpretation and Training.
Floyd F. Sabins J r., Remote Sensing Enterprises,
P.O. Box 2893, La Habra, CA 90631, Telephone
714-879-4367
User Organization.
The GEOSAT Committee Inc., 153 Kearney St.,
Suite 209, San Francisco, CA 94108, Telephone
415-981-6265, Telex 910-371-2043
SI Metric Conversion Factor
mile x l.609344* E+OO km
"Conversion factor is exact. JPT
SPE 15192. Distinguished Author Series articles arc general. descriptive presentations
that summarize the state of the art in an area of technology by describing recent
developments for readers who are not specialists in the topics discussed. Written by
individuals recognized as experts in the areas, these articles provide key references to
more definitive work and present specific details only to illustrate the technology.
Purpose: To inform the general readership of recent advances in various areas of
petroleum engineering. A softbound anthology, SPE Distil1Kuished Author Snies: Dec.
1981-Dec. 1983, is available from SPE's Book Order Dept.
Journal of Petroleum Technology, January 1986