Oblique Thermal Imaging of the Pisgah Lava Field, California Acquired March 2010

As part of a NASA-funded study of diurnal thermal imaging at a Mars analog site, we conducted simultaneous oblique thermal imaging and in situ temperature measurements within two regions of interest on the Pisgah lava field, near Ludlow, California. Both regions of interest contained either cave or cave-like alcoves. Data released in this report was collected from 03/23/2010 to 03/25/2010. The experiment was conducted at Pisgah lava field, which is located about 175 miles northeast of Los Angeles on Bureau of Land Management lands. Consisting of Quaternary basaltic lava and a cinder cone superimposed on alluvial deposits and lacustrine sediments of Lavic Lake playa (Dibblee, 1966), the flow is approximately 21,000 years old (Wise 1969)]. Extending ~18km to the west and 8 km to the southeast from the Pisgah cinder cone (Harter 2009), three eruption phases emitted both pahoehoe and a'a lava, which vary in thickness from 1 to 5 meters across the field (Gaddis, 1994). In addition to the lava flows, sections of the landscape were punctuated by desert pavements and sand deposits, which make the area ideal for thermal imaging of a range thermal physical properties. The cinder cone provided an appropriate vantage point for oblique imagery acquisition of the lava field. Thermal imaging of each ROI was conducted on consecutive days. Imagery was collected for the B-Cave ROI first and was more oblique than the Station 7 Trench ROI, which was acquired the next day.