Spectral Unmixing Applied to Desert Soils for the - Naval ...

Figure 13. This figure illustrates the soil type and distribution of the Canyonlands
National Park study site (Lammers, 1991).
Mazourka Canyon of the Inyo Mountains between Owens Valley and Death
Valley is the second collection area (Figure 14, inset C). The geology of this region
(Figure 15, inset B) consists of a continuous sequence of limestone roughly 457.2 m
(1500 ft) thick (Merriam, 1973). Other components of the limestone structure in
Mazourka Canyon include calcareous siltstone, black chert, and gray chert (Merriam,
1973). Mazourka Canyon is part of the Inyo Mountains which once were part of the
North Americas western continental shelf (Stone et al., 2009). The substrate is the result
of shallow-water sediments being uplifted during the mid to late Paleozoic era
(570–240 mya). Once on the continental shelf, the marine sediments went through several
periods of subsidence and uplift related to thrust faulting (Stevens and Stone, 2007; Stone
and Stevens, 1998; Stone et al., 2009).
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