Mapping of Lineament Structures from Aeromagnetic and Landsat Data Over Ankpa Area of Lower Benue Trough, Nigeria

Structural analysis of aeromagnetic and Landsat data over Ankpa area, Benue state was carried out to delineate the basement topography, hydrocarbon potentials, groundwater availability and the structures that control basin formation. The Landsat imagery generated from this study was further processed using Geomatica software (version 9.0). The results obtained revealed that the drainage pattern is dendritic which could be associated to the lithological, structural and topographic differences. Also, this may indicate the presence of alluvial rocks, typically of the same geology, mainly of sedimentary rocks. This present study is in good agreement with the areas in the lineament map of high-density structures. The observation showed that the study area constitutes densely lineaments that cut across each other, which may be attributed to groundwater availability and upward migration of hydrocarbon-bearing formation. The structural trend is predominantly in the NE-SW direction and agrees with the Landsat data structural trends. Significantly, this NE-SW trend is in agreement with the trend of Benue Trough (NE –SW) and could be that they have the same structural control