Reflectance spectra of glass-bearing mafic silicate mixtures and spectral deconvolution procedures

The reflectance spectra of lunar, and perhaps asteroidal and Mercurian, soil analogs can be used to ascertain the effectiveness of continuum-removal procedures designed to isolate specific mineral absorption features. Spectra differences between natural and laboratory-produced glasses preclude the direct application of the latter to the analysis of remote sensing data. Nevertheless, it appears that currently used straight line continuum-removal procedures yield generally reasonable reconstructions of mafic silicate absorption bands in terms of band center wavelength positions. Better results would be achieved by removing a more accurately derived glass continuum from observational spectra.