10.5. Landsat Data

Landsat 8 data is collected over 11 bands as illustrated below.

../../_images/landsat_8_bands.png

Landsat 8 band combinations are usually bands 4, 3 and 2 in the R, G and B channels for an aerial photo type image, whereas the combination of bands 6, 4 and 2 typically enhances the geology. Band 8 is used to pan-sharpen the 30 m images to 15 m resolution. The SCP plug-in will automatically pan-sharpen the RGB images if this option is selected.

A recent article by Ito et al (2022) uses a series of indices to analyse the geology in Landsat scenes as follows;

Index Number

Index Name

Formula

1

Ferric Iron “redness”

4/2

2

Ferric Iron 2

(4/2)*((4+6)/5)

3

Ferrous iron, coarse grained ferric iron

(3+6)/(4+5)

4

Clay, sulphate, mica, marble

(6/7)/(5/4)

5

Iron sulphate

(2/1)-(5/4)