A lithologic investigation has been performed on the Tarn Flat area, Antarc
tica, based on Landsat-TM and SPOT-XS processed images and on radiometric f
ield data acquired by an EXOTECH radiometer. Results from the field survey,
performed during the austral summer 1994-95 expedition, were used to verif
y the ability of satellite images to discriminate between the main rock. Pr
incipal Component transformation allowed to enhance the spectral informatio
n of rocks, despite the high band correlation of TM data, while high-pass f
iltering and TM-SPOT merging allowed a fairly accurate detection of morphol
ogic features. A supervised classification has been carried out on the proc
essed satellite images as a further demonstration of the utility of remote
observation to investigate extreme environments.