The Geostatistical Approach

The statistical methods described earlier permit the estimation of the average value of a
deposit parameter and the calculation of confidence limits for this value. They are based
on the very important assumption that sample values are independent of one another and
are equally representative. It has been demonstrated that these methods yield unreliable
results when the drill-hole spacing is highly variable but they also suffer from at least two
other major deficiencies. Under many circumstances, they lead to an incorrect estimate
of the certainty with which the deposit is known. They can also be extremely unreliable
for the essential task of estimating the value of a subset of an ore body such as a block,
panel, mine section or bench. As soon as a reasonable number of samples has been
obtained from the deposit, the assumption of the independence of these samples
becomes invalid and represents in fact an ignoring of an important portion of the
knowledge gained during the sampling program, i.e., the relationships between the
sample values and their relative positions. Whatever method is used for the valuation of
a block of ore, the following assumptions are always made: 1) The values of samples
located near or inside the block being estimated are related to the value of the block and,
most importantly, 2) The values of the samples located closest to the block are most
closely related to the value of the block. These assumptions will hold true only if the
following condition is also satisfied, as it is in virtually every known type of mineral deposit:
3) There exists a relationship between sample values which is a function of their distance
apart