PREFACE
nonparametric geostatistics, universal kriging, pro-
bability kriging, and cokriging, among others.
From a student’s perspective we have aimed for
several additional goals. First, we use the concept of
ideal models throughout the text, standards against
which reality can be compared or measured. In our
experience this has been a productive way to get ideas
across to the inexperienced. Secondly, at the end of
each chapter we provide a selection of exercises that
are meant to serve both as assignments and as a basis
for developing new questions/assignments related to
a particular data set that an instructor is using in a
formal course. Also, we provide a few selected ref-
erences at the close of each chapter as an aid to both
instructor and student in researching some of the main
themes of the chapter. The text assumes that appro-
priate software is available to the student. However,
several programs and data sets that relate to the text
are available through the publisher’s website.
The reader will quickly find that the use of units
is not standardized in this text. The real world is not
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standardized! In the various examples that we quote,
we have used the units of the original authors. An
ability to move between British and metric systems
is essential in the global environment in which estima-
tions are conducted. A table of conversion factors is
included in an appendix to aid students in their ability
to “converse” between systems of units.
One of the more serious misgivings we have about
much of the published literature on mineral inventory
estimation relates to the all-too-common practice of
using artificial data or camouflaging real data, either
by not naming the mineral deposit represented or by
purposely omitting scales on diagrams and by multi-
plying data by an unknown factor to hide true values,
among other actions. Such procedures cloud the va-
lidity or interpretation of what is being presented, if
for no other reason than it is impossible to appreci-
ate the impact of geology on the interpretation of the
numeric data. We have avoided altering data in any
way in this text unless a specific transformation is an
inherent part of an estimation procedure.