• Use of visible and thermal hyperspectral reflectance spectra for logging ore grade and lithology in drill cores; Inco Ltd and European Space Agency. I study the colour of water. That may seem pretty academic, but the colour of water tells you a lot about what's in the water. For instance, if you are interested in lakes, colour can tell you how much algae, sediment and "dissolved organic matter" (DOM) there is. (DOM is the tea-coloured stain that you often see in northern lakes and rivers.) Around Sudbury, colour can also tell you about the pH or acidity of water. The real advantage of understanding what colour means is that you can measure lake colour from an airplane, or from space using a satellite. This means that you can map and monitor water quality with a minimum of expensive field work, and since Northern Ontario has at least 250,000 lakes, and many of them are being affected by air pollution and global warming, this is a real cost savings!
  
  
• I'm also interested in using the new computer mapping and analysis tools that are packaged into Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Sometimes water colour cannot tell me all I want to know about a lake. I hope that by looking at maps of the watersheds around lakes, I can estimate how deep they are, or what the water quality and colour SHOULD be. Differences between the actual colour and the expected colour may give me even more clues about pollution.

Refereed Papers

Feng, J., Rivard, B., Gallie, A., and Sanchez-Azofeifa, A. (2003) Rock type identification in a simulated underground environment using 2nd order derivative thermal infrared reflectance spectra. In press. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull.

Gallie, E.A., McArdle, S., Rivard, B. and Francis, H. (2002) Estimating sulphide ore grade in broken rock using visible/infrared hyperspectral reflectance spectra. International J. of Remote Sensing 23(11): 2229-2246.

Rivard, B., Feng, J., Gallie, E.A., and Francis, H. (2001) Ore detection and grade estimation in Sudbury mines using thermal infrared spectroscopy. Geophysics 66(6): 1691-1698.

Abstracts and Conference Proceedings

Rivard, B., Gallie, A., Cloutis, E., Sanchez, A., and Feng, J. (2004) Hyperspectral reflectance spectroscopy for rapid characterization of oil sands. 5nd annual meeting of the Geoide NCE, Ottawa, May 31-June 1.

Feng, J., Rivard, B., and Gallie, A. (2004) Estimating bulk chemistry and modal mineralogy of igneous cores using thermal infrared spectroscopy. Geological Association of Canada, St Catherines Meeting, May 12-14, 2004.

Rivard, B., Feng, J., Gallie, A., Sanchez, A., and Catuneanu, O. (2003), Automated core logging of lithology by hyperspectral remote sensing. 4th annual meeting of the Geoide NCE, Victoria, May 21-23, 2003

Feng, J., Rivard, B., and Gallie, A. (2003) Rock type discrimination in a simulated underground environment using 2nd order derivative thermal infrared reflectance spectra. Geological Association of Canada, Vancouver Meeting, May 25-28, 2003.

Feng, J., Rivard, B., and Gallie, A. (2002) Sulfide estimation of rock cores using thermal infrared reflectance. Fourth Canadian Space Exploration Workshop: Science payloads for Mars. Ottawa, 15 and 16 November 2002.

Rivard, B., Gallie, A., Sanchez, A., Catuneanu, O., and Grunsky, E. (2002) Automated core logging of lithology by hyperspectral remote sensing. 3nd annual meeting of the Geoide NCE, Toronto, May 21-24, 2002.