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Remote Sensing Study of the Ancient Jabali Silver Mines (Yemen): From Past to Present

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Part of the book series: Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing ((RDIP,volume 16))

Abstract

Archaeological research into the ancient Jabali silver mines in northern Yemen is a multidisciplinary project linking archaeologists, historians, and geologists, supported by remote satellite-based sensing. Mining companies are considering the development of the Jabali deposit for zinc ore. Some of the facilities, including a large open pit, will have a destructive impact on the old pits. Multispectral (Landsat TM, Terra ASTER, ALOS-AVNIR-2, etc.) and very high spatial resolution images such as QuickBird have been widely used for the geological setting and detail mapping of the different archaeological sites. The remote sensing data also provides a solid basis when it comes to detecting current operational sites.

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Acknowledgements

The field missions have been facilitated by the Yemen Geological Survey and Mineral Board (Dr Ismail N. Al Ganad), the Jabal Salab Company (Yemen) ltd. (General Manager Brett Grist), and the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs. We are particularly indebted to Major Khaled Al Naphani and the National Guard of Yemen for assistance with field work. The ALOS data have been acquired in the Pilot-Project ADEN-ALOS no. 3463 (Geological Mapping of Sensitive Environments) supported by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

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Correspondence to Jean-Paul Deroin .

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Deroin, JP., Téreygeol, F., Heckes, J. (2012). Remote Sensing Study of the Ancient Jabali Silver Mines (Yemen): From Past to Present. In: Lasaponara, R., Masini, N. (eds) Satellite Remote Sensing. Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8801-7_10

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