MAPPING OF OPHIOLITES IN THE INDUS-SUTURE ZONE OF NORTHWESTERN HIMALAYA, USING SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING DATA

Ophiolites, which have been tectonically emplaced along continental margins and island arcs, are significant to the understanding of mountain belt evolution. In the Himalayas, the ophiolitic suite of rocks occur along the Indussuture zone from Hanle in the southeast to Dras\|Kargil sector in the northwest and it represents the remnant of the compressed uplifted wedge of the oceanic crust between the two colliding continental masses, the Indian and the Asian plates.. These ophiolites are temporally and spatially correlated with the culminating phase of the Himalayan orogeny. The Indus River flows to its north separating the ophiolite from the Trans Himalayan litho\|units. Geological mapping in the hostile and inaccessible mountainous terrains of the Himalaya has always posed a great challenge to geologists. Nevertheless, a number of geologists have undertaken such arduous mapping expeditions in the past and prepared fairly good geological maps of these terrains .However there always existed disputes on the accuracy of lithological boundaries and structural details in these maps because many of these boundaries and structural features were completed through extrapolations and/or interpolations as the ruggedness and inaccessibility of a large part of the terrain forbid physical examination of every outcrop. It is in this context the potential of remote sensing, especially of satellite images, is to be appreciated.