Identificación de zonas de alteración hidrotermal por medio de procesamiento de imágenes satelitales en el área geotérmica del municipio de Paipa

Abstract

According to volcanological studies conducted by the Colombian Geological Service (SGC), which are developed for the use of geothermal energy as a non-conventional energy source, the municipality of Paipa in the department of Boyacá has geothermal potential in the volcanic complex, which is the heat source of the thermal manifestations of the municipality. This research project presents a methodology consisting of remote sensing techniques to identify the Hydrothermal Alteration Zones in the municipality of Paipa, through the analysis of multispectral Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI satellite images. For this, the due digital image processing was performed, which consists of image correction, combination of spectral bands, band quotient and principal component analysis (PCA), which are the most used methods in the preliminary phases of identification of areas with geothermal potential; then the supervised classification was performed and the Pearson correlation coefficient was applied between them and validation, making a comparison of the results obtained on the lithology of geological formations, to finally generate cartography. The results were evidenced in the southern area of the municipality of Paipa, where, by previous studies, the geothermal zone is established in the formations with lithological characteristics of sandstones, clays, siltstones and iron oxides, which allow identifying the HAZ with the methodology used when these lithological structures are visible on the surface.