Integrated Spatial and Spectrum Method for Geochemical Anomaly Separation

Abstract

A new approach for separating geochemical anomalies from background has been developedon the basis of integration of spatial and spectrum analysis. A map generated from geochemicaldata can be transformed into a frequency domain in which a spatial concentration-area fractalmethod can be applied to distinguish the patterns on the basis of the power-spectrum distribution.Distinct classes can be generated, such as lower, intermediate, and high power-spectrum valuesapproximately corresponding to background, anomalies, and noises of geochemical values ina spatial domain. An irregular filter then can be constructed on these distinct patterns withthe background and noises related to low- and high-power-spectrum values being removed.The image converted back to a spatial domain with the filter applied can show patterns which,after the removal of background and noise, mainly reflect a residual area that representsanomalous or atypical geochemical patterns. This method is demonstrated using a case studyof soil geochemical data from the Mudik area, on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The resultsobtained from this method in comparison with those obtained from other methods have shownthat the newly developed method can separate overlapping populations without using a singlecutoff value.