Original Paper Prospecting for Clinoptilolite-Type Zeolite in a Volcano- Sedimentary Terrain Using ASTER Data: A Case Study from Alborz Mountains, Northern Iran Khadijeh Validabadi Bozcheloei 1,2 and Majid H. Tangestani 1 Received 2 July 2018; accepted 3 January 2019 Zeolites are hydrated alumino-silicates of alkali metals and alkaline earth cations which occur in sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary terrains. In this study, visible–near-infrared and shortwave infrared data of ASTER were evaluated in prospecting for zeolite in part of the green tuff belt of the Alborz Mountains, northern Iran. The study area is dominantly covered by sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary rocks, in which zeolite minerals occur only in the Late Eocene vitric tuff. Principal components (PC) analysis and spectral information divergence (SID) were used to discriminate and map the sedimentary and volcano-sedi- mentary units and the zeolite-rich areas, respectively. The X-ray diffraction and reflectance spectroscopy results indicated that clinoptilolite is the major type of zeolite mineral in this area. Comparing a color composite image, produced from PC images 1–3–5 as R–G–B, with the published geological map and the field investigations indicated that major sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary units as well as their alluvial deposits were discriminated effi- ciently. Results of the SID method, using an image-derived spectrum of clinoptilolite as a reference, showed good agreements with the field observations. The results of this study indicated that ASTER data are useful for discriminating various sedimentary and volcano- sedimentary units as well as clinoptilolite-type zeolite-rich areas in arid and semiarid ter- rains. KEY WORDS: Clinoptilolite, Zeolite, ASTER, Spectral information divergence. INTRODUCTION The industrialization level of a country is gen- erally measured by the ratio of value of mined industrial minerals to the value of metallic minerals, which is greater than one in industrialized countries (Evans 1993). In the recent decades, the market for industrial minerals has developed fast. Industrial minerals are defined as any rock, mineral or other naturally occurring substances with economic value, excepting metallic ores, mineral fuels, and gem- stones (Noetstaller 1988). Zeolites, which are considered industrial min- erals, are hydrated alumino-silicates with porous structure that can host a variety of cations like Na + , K + , Ca 2+ , and Mg 2+ (Hay 1977; Iijima 1980). Clinoptilolite is a commonly occurring natural zeo- lite, which is widely used as purifier for water and wastewater, catalyst in petroleum industries, fertil- izer in agriculture, additive in animal food, and in detergent powders. Special properties of zeolites relative to other crystalline materials are their interconnected pores with various size and shape as 1 Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Shiraz University, Adabyat Square, P.O. Box. 71454 Shiraz, Iran. 2 To whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: khvalid@gmail.com Ó 2019 International Association for Mathematical Geosciences Natural Resources Research (Ó 2019) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-019-09452-1