Investigating the capability of WorldView-3 superspectral data for direct hydrocarbon detection

The recently launched WorldView-3 (WV-3) satellite is a high spatial resolution instrument with eight multispectral bands in the visible and near-infrared and an additional eight bands in the short-wave infrared (SWIR). Three of the SWIR bands, including bands 9, 12, and 16 (centered at 1210, 1730, and 2330 nm) respectively overlap with diagnostic absorption features of hydrocarbons (HCs) at 1200, 1700, and 2300 nm. This paper aims to investigate the capability of this superspectral instrument for direct HC detection. For this purpose, we have conducted several simulation experiments using multiple datasets comprising (i) spectral libraries of different HCs measured in the laboratory, (ii) close-range hyperspectral imagery of a well-known tar-sand sample acquired with a sisuCHEMA imaging system, and (iii) far-range ProSpecTIR hyperspectral imagery collected over twelve simulated HC-shows. These datasets were convolved to the spectral resolution of WV-3 and analyzed using a variety of spectral processing techniques. The absorption features of HCs manifest themselves in all cases albeit with varying intensity. The effect of a series of parameters on the detectability of the HCs was also scrutinized; these included background geology, spectral mixing, HC type, endmember set, spatial resolution, noise level, and topography. We demonstrate that the HC absorption feature in WV-3's band 12, accompanied by shoulders sustained at bands 11 and 13 (centered at 1660 and 2165 nm), is resilient enough and persist under various conditions. Potential applications of these finding include hydrocarbon exploration in frontier basins and environmental monitoring.