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1 Wimpey Environmental Limited, Beaconsfield Road, Hayes, Middlesex UB4 0LS, UK
2 Department of Geology, Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BP, UK
Geostatistical techniques are now well over a quarter of a century old. Despite initial scepticism caused by misuse due to poor understanding of geostatistics, the spatial correlation between sample points is now commonly incorporated in the assessment of ore reserves.
The recent appearance of several low-cost software packages, written for the ubiquitous IBM compatible personal computer, now permits geostatistics, once the exclusive domain of university researchers and large mining companies, to be more widely available. Such packages offer a choice of variogram models, incorporate anisotropy, support a number of kriging methods, enable limited three-dimensional interpolation and produce high-quality graphical output. Their relative ease of use can do nothing, however, to overcome either the inherent limitations of the PC operating system (MS-DOS) or ignorance on the part of the user of geostatistical techniques.
An understanding of the theory of geostatistics, together with a clear definition of the problem to be solved and a knowledge of the capabilities of the software to be used, are essential if the mistakes made with ore reserve assessment in the early days are not to be repeated by today’s geostatistical apprentices.
Low-cost software has been used as an aid to planning an investigation of the resource around a sand pit and for the assessment of reserves at an opencast coal site.
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  C. P. Nathanail Reserve assessment of a stratified deposit with special reference to opencast coal mining in Great Britain Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 1994; 79: 45 - 52. [Abstract] [PDF]
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