NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will map portions of the southwest United States for critical minerals using advanced airborne imaging. Hyperspectral data from hundreds of wavelengths of reflected light can provide new information about Earth’s surface and atmosphere to help scientists understand Earth’s geology and biology, as well as the effects of climate change. The research project, called the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx), will use NASA’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer (HyTES) instruments flown on NASA’s ER-2 and Gulfstream V aircraft to collect the measurements over the country’s arid and semi-arid regions, including parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.
