In the frame of a state-funded research project, multispectral Landsat-TM and hyperspectral DAIS 7915 data were evaluated with respect to the mineralogical composition and thermal anomalies of the open lignite mining dump of Zwenkau in the Central German Lignite Mining District. For future recultivation of the mines and for the study of the dumps' hydrogeochemical alteration, a detailed knowledge of their composition is of great importance. Quantitative methods for the determination of organic carbon, pyrite and quartz based on laboratory reflectance measurements from the reflective to the thermal wavelength region were developed and successfully transferred to DAIS 7915 data for a spatial mapping of these parameters. The analysis of the thermal remote sensing data allows a localisation of thermal anomalies that seems to be related to exothermic pyrite oxidation processes.