Determination of Kula basalts (geosite) in Turkey using remote sensing techniques

Kula Region (Manisa, Turkey), with its 80 volcanic cones, lava flows, basalt plateaus and basalt columns, fairy chimney formations in canyons carved by the Gediz River, shelter cities hidden in volcanic lava, footprint fossils belonging to the first humans, and geological uniqueness, has a great importance in terms of geotourism potential as it is being a natural heritage in the Aegean region of Anatolia. In this study, some remote sensing image processing techniques such as band combination, band rationing, and principal component analyses were used to depict the cultural and natural geosite known as Kula basalts in Turkey. Satellite images utilized here in this study were Landsat band images (band 1 to band 7). Principal component analyses (PCA) were performed on the first ratio group with 5/4, 5/1, and 3/7 bands and then on the second ratio group with 3/1, 4/5, and 3/2 bands. As a conclusion and outcome of this PCA, it was found that red, green, and blue (RGB) composite with PC1 and PC3 gray-level images from the first ratio group and PC2 gray-level image from the second group showed up the basalt areas better than those from other techniques studied in this research. After unsupervised classification of this final composite of PCA, it is computed that the basalt rocks in Kula cover an area of 36,774 ha totally.