Geostatistical Case Studies

It is now nearly 25 years since the first textbook on geostatistics (Traitj de gjostatistique appliquje by G. Matheron) appeared in print in 1962. In that time geostatis­ tics has grown from an arcane theory regarded with scepticism by statisticians and miners alike, to a reputable scientific disci­ pline which is routinely used in the geosciences. In the mining industry, in particularly, comparisons between predicted reserve estimates and actual production figures have proved its worth. Few now doubt its usefulness as a statistical tool in the earth sciences. Over the past quarter of a century, many geostatistical case studies have been published but the vast majority of these are routine applications of kriging. Our objective with this volume is to present a series of innovative applications of geostatistics. These range from a careful variographic analysis on uranium data, through detailed studies on geologically complex deposits right up to the latest nonlinear methods applied to deposits with highly skew data distributions. Applications of new techniques such as the external drift method for combining well data with seismic information have also been included. Throughout the volume the accent has been put on how to apply geostatistics in practice. Notation has been kept to a mininmum and mathematical details have been relegated to annexes. We hope that this will encourage readers to put the more sophis­ ticated techniques into practice in their own fields.