Abstract

Murujuga is an area of exceptional cultural and spiritual significance to the local indigenous people containing an estimated one to two million petroglyphs that have been created over a period of up to 65,000 years. Porosity profiles over changing rock structures may provide key insights into weathering and surface durability of rocks on which these petrographs have been created. Kernel smoothing can be used to determine a porosity profile. Our method applies opening morphology and connected set transforms to Scanning Electron Microscope images to define the rock sample surface. The depth of each pixel from the rock surface can then be found. Nadaraya-Watson smoothing is applied to estimate porosity at different depths.

This paper presents joint research with Prof. Adrian Baddeley