©2011 Society of Economic Geologists, Inc.

Economic Geology, v. 106, pp. 241–259

A Time-Series Audit of Zipf’s Law as a Measure of Terrane Endowment and

Maturity in Mineral Exploration
PIETRO GUJ,1,† MATTHEW FALLON,2 T. CAMPBELL MCCUAIG,3 AND ROBERT FAGAN4
1 Centre for Exploration Targeting, Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University of Technology, G.P.O. Box U 1987,
Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia
2 Barrick Gold of Australia, Level 2, No. 2 Mill Street, Perth, Western Australia 6000, Australia
3 Centre for Exploration Targeting, the University of Western Australia, School of Earth and Environment, M006, No. 35 Stirling Hwy,
Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
4 Department of Exploration and Mining Geology, Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University of Technology, Locked Bag 22,
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia 6430, Australia

Abstract
Controversy has surrounded the application of Zipf’s Law as a potential exploration tool since it was first pro-
posed by Folinsbee in 1977. The current study empirically assesses, with the wisdom of hindsight, the realism
of predictions that could have been made at various times in the past about the number and size of lode gold
deposits yet to be discovered in the Archean Yilgarn craton of Western Australia. The size distribution of gold
deposits predicted by the Zipf curve at any point in time represents an estimate of the original “natural”
endowment for this terrane based on the knowledge available at the time. Predicted gold deposits not matched
by known deposits, by contrast, represent the “residual” endowment, for deposits yet to be discovered. The
study concludes that a Zipf curve based on the size distribution of gold deposits known in 1973, 1989, 2003,
and 2008 would have provided remarkably realistic predictions of the size and number of the gold deposits that
were discovered subsequently, or of the degree to which known deposits have grown in size in subsequent years
as a result of better delineation. Because lode gold orebodies are notoriously difficult to fully delineate and
their resources tend to grow with time, initial Zipf predictions generally prove conservative. Predictions are
particularly sensitive to the accuracy of the resource inventory of the largest rank 1 deposit on which the Zipf
curve is based—in our case, the Kalgoorlie Golden Mile—which has virtually doubled in size during the period
covered by the study, from 36 to 72 Moz of contained gold. Nevertheless, the degree of exploration maturity
could have consistently been estimated with a high degree of accuracy as 17 percent of predicted gold endow-
ment discovered in 1973, 33 percent in 1989, 62.5 percent in 2003, and 75 percent in 2008. In conclusion,
application of Zipf’s Law would have represented an effective motivator to embark into a well-resourced gold
exploration campaign in the Yilgarn craton.

Introduction residual endowment estimations at various points in time

A KEY DECISION point in any exploration strategy is the judg-
ment that a particular geologic region contains an as yet
undiscovered deposit of sufficient value to merit continued
exploration effort. This decision point is a factor at the green-
fields through brownfields to mine site exploration scale. The
judgment is always qualitative and based on the experience
and/or biases of the explorer or exploration team, and is made
up of a combination of empirical (presence of significant min-
eralization already established in a terrane geologically simi-
lar to another well-endowed terrane) and conceptual (if the
terrane appears to have all of the key ingredients of the pre-
ferred mineralization model processes) lines of evidence. To
date, a quantitative measure of endowment and, in particular,
residual endowment (the as-yet-undiscovered deposits) re-
mains elusive.
This paper investigates the use of size-frequency distribu-
tions of deposits, and, specifically, the application of the Zipf
curve, as a tool to estimate the residual mineral endowment
of a terrane. Moreover, the paper uses a time-series analysis
of the size-frequency distributions of gold deposits in a well-
explored terrane, the Archean Yilgarn craton of Western Aus-
tralia, to determine if the size-frequency distributions and
† Corresponding author: e-mail, p.guj@curtin.edu.au
0361-0128/11/3944/241-19
could have resulted in meaningful exploration strategy deci-
sions in the past.
Regional Geologic Setting
The Yilgarn craton is located in Western Australia and oc-
cupies approximately one-third of the state’s total landmass of
3 Mkm2. Rocks within the craton consist of a suite of Archean
metavolcanic and metasediment rocks contained within green-
stone belts, which have undergone metamorphism and multi-
ple deformation events (Fig. 1). Granite and granitoid gneiss
make up approximately 70 percent of the exposed craton.
The Yilgarn craton was subdivided into six geologic ter-
ranes by Cassidy et al. (2006), namely, the Narryer, South-
west, Youanmi, Kalgoorlie, Kurnalpi, and Burtville. The last
three have been amalgamated in the Eastern Goldfields Su-
perterrane (Fig. 1). The formation of the Yilgarn craton has
been interpreted as the result of the accretion of terranes of
existing continental crust and juvenile crust between 3.8 and
2.6 Ga. Of interest to this study are the final stages of cra-
tonization of the Yilgarn craton, beginning with deposition of
greenstones at 2.72 to 2.66 Ga, followed by various metamor-
phic, magmatic, and deformational events, and culminating in
final cratonization during approximately east-to-west com-
pression at 2.65 to 2.63 Ga.
Submitted: September 2, 2009
241 Accepted: October 27, 2010

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 242
FIG. 1. Tectonic terranes and metallogenic distribution of gold deposits in the Yilgarn craton (modified after Robert et al.,
2005).
Gold mineralization in the Yilgarn craton occurs predomi-
nantly within the greenstone belts with most of the gold en-
dowment deposited in the Eastern Goldfields Superterrane.
Robert et al. (2005) state that the gold endowment of indi-
vidual greenstone belts appears to be related to the ratio of
supracrustal to granitic rocks. Hodgson (1987) identified
within the best-endowed greenstone belts that gold deposits
tend to cluster, forming mining camps covering an area of 100
to 1,000 km2. Camps can form as either a cluster of multiple
mineralized systems such as the Golden Mile, Kalgoorlie, or
as one large deposit surrounded by multiple smaller deposits
such as the Boddington, St. Ives, and Plutonic camps. Camps
are located near interpreted major crustal structures. The size
distribution of the deposits, number of deposits, and total
gold endowment are related to the condition that very large
deposits are rare compared to small deposits and account for
most of the metal endowment. The 2008 data set for gold
deposits in the Yilgarn craton indicates (1) the 10 largest
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GUJ ET AL.
deposits account for 55.6 percent of the total gold endow-
ment, (2) two camps occur containing more than 30 Moz, and
(3) 16 camps contain deposits greater than 5 Moz.
Cassidy and Hagemann (2001) stated that world-class de-
posits in the Yilgarn craton have four common features in-
cluding (1) strong structural control, (2) relative timing of
gold mineralization with respect to peak metamorphism, (3)
consistent metal distribution, and (4) broadly uniform, low to
moderate salinity, mixed aqueous-carbonic fluid inclusions.
Robert et al. (2005) identified that although gold deposits
form in all rock types, three rock types tend to host the ma-
jority of the large gold systems, including (1) iron-rich mafic
igneous rocks, such as tholeiitic basalt and differentiated do-
lerite sills, (2) iron-rich clastic meta- sedimentary rocks and
banded iron formations and (3) dioritic to felsic porphyritic
stocks and dikes.
The majority of gold deposits in the Yilgarn craton are lo-
cated in rocks metamorphosed to the lower greenschist facies
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 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY
and only a small number of deposits larger than 1 Moz are in
rocks transitional between the greenschist and amphibolite
facies (e.g., Norseman), and metamorphosed to the amphibo-
lite facies (e.g., Big Bell, Plutonic). Hagemann et al. (1992)
stated that very few deposits are located in the subgreenschist
facies and no deposits greater than 1 Moz had been discov-
ered in granulite facies metamorphic rocks by 2008.
Robert et al. (2005) identified that many gold deposits con-
tain a single style of mineralization whereas others, especially
large ones, display several styles. The dominant mineraliza-
tion styles include quartz-carbonate veins, sulfidic replace-
ment of banded iron formations, sulfidic replacement lodes
and crustiform veins, disseminated-stockwork zones, and sul-
fide-rich veins.
Despite the long history of craton assembly in the Yilgarn
craton, it is important to note that the majority of gold de-
posits formed during a period of not more than 0.03 Ga, be-
tween 2.66 and 2.63 Ga, during the final stages of cratoniza-
tion (Robert et al., 2005), with most gold deposits formed in
the last 0.01 Ga, corresponding to the decline of volcanism
and the peak of plutonism and deformation. Furthermore, for
each deposit there is no single mineralizing event; however, in
some camps there is evidence of two mineralizing events
within this 0.03 Ga window.
Zipf’s Law
There is empirical evidence that many natural systems, in-
cluding the size of mineral and petroleum accumulations,
may abide by some form of power law. One such statistical
law was developed by Zipf (1949) to describe the relationship
between size and rank of discrete phenomena. Zipf’s Law was
applied initially to the frequency of use of words in various
languages, to income distribution, to immune system re-
sponses, to city populations, etc., and only later to the occur-
rence and size of petroleum and mineral deposits (Folinsbee,
1977; Rowlands and Sampey, 1977).
Zipf’s Law is essentially a discrete expression of the contin-
uous Pareto distribution also known as the 80/20 rule (Pareto,
1927, in Flinsbee, 1977). Points along the Zipf’s curve are
generated by the formula:
y = C · r –k
where C is the value of the largest member of the population
at rank 1, r is the rank of a point with value y, and k is a con-
stant that, under stable conditions of geologic equilibrium,
has a value approximating one.Thus, in natural phenomena
abiding by this law the product of the rank and the size of
each data point is approximately constant. In other words, the
largest occurrence at rank 1 is twice as large as that at rank 2,
three times as large as rank 3 and so on.
It would appear that, depending on the system which is an-
alyzed and whether it is evolving or stable, the value of k can
vary. Nitsche (2005) while analyzing 515 estimates of size dis-
tributions of cities (evolving systems) in 29 separate studies
concluded that about two-thirds of the k factors fell between
0.8 and 1.2, but higher and lower k also occurred. A k value
of 0.8 means that the rank 2 member is 57.4 percent the size
of the rank 1, whereas k values of 1 and 1.2 correspond to 50
and 43.5 percent of the size of the rank 1 member, respec-
tively. Nota and Song (2008) showed that the value of k may
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also be influenced by whether the sample is biased toward
high values (probably the case of most immature exploration
systems), generating higher k factor values greater than that
of the population as a whole and vice versa.
Geologic systems, of course, may give evidence of varying
levels of ongoing evolution or stability which are reflected in
different values of k. For instance, analysis of the magnitude of
earthquakes or the extent of faults in recent sedimentary basins
may be viewed in the context of evolving, rather than stable,
systems and may display k values both lower or larger than 1.
There is however some evidence that in stable geological
systems k approximates a value of 1 (Paliwal et al., 1986), i.e.,
that stable geological systems adhere to the purest form of
rank-size rule (Nota and Song, 2008). This view is best sup-
ported through the analysis of very mature exploration areas
where most (ideally all) deposits have been discovered and
their sizes adequately outlined and where, in effect, the sam-
ple of known deposits is close to the actual population.
In the case of our study, support for a k factor value of
about 1 is derived from our observations relating to mature
and eminently stable systems such as the size distribution of
nickel sulfide deposits in Archean greenstones of the Kam-
balda Dome in the Yilgarn craton of Western Australia and of
gold nuggets in a fully exploited alluvial patch in a paleochan-
nel part of a Palaeo-Mesozoic landscape overlying the Yilgarn
craton.
In the first instance a study conducted by Mamuse and Guj
(2011) clearly shows that the largest 12 nickel deposits in the
Kambalda Dome display almost perfect correlation with the
size of the corresponding ranking deposits theoretically gen-
erated by a Zipf distribution with a k factor of 1. A similar
near-perfect correlation between estimated and observed size
distributions is shown by the gold nuggets from the fully ex-
ploited Alec Holm alluvial patch in the Eastern Goldfields of
Western Australia which also fits a Zipf distribution with k =1
almost perfectly (Fagan, 2010, pers. commun.).
This empirical evidence from other types of deposits from
the general study area has given the authors initial confidence
in the use of a Zipf distribution with an exponential factor k =
1 in the context of local Archean lode gold deposits.
In addition, given the relative exploration maturity for
Archean lode gold deposits in the Yilgarn craton, it is no sur-
prise that the correlation coefficient between the size of the
50 largest deposits known by the end of 2008 and the corre-
sponding rank 1 to 50, Zipf-generated deposit sizes, is very
high in spite of the fact that these numbers still include a
small number of as-yet-undiscovered deposit gaps not
matched by known deposits.
Applications of Zipf’s Law to the petroleum industry in-
clude studies undertaken by Howarth et al. (1980), Schuene-
meyer and Drew (1983) and Merriam et al. (2004), and to the
mineral industry by Folinsbee (1977), Rowlands and Sampey
(1977), Tapp and Koniuszko (1978), Paliwal et al. (1986),
Houghton et al. (1993), Fagan (2006), McCuaig and Guj
(2006), and Guj et al. (2007).
Of these studies, those by Rowlands and Sampey (1977)
and Fagan (2006) relate to predictions of size and number of
as-yet-undiscovered lode gold deposits of the Yilgarn craton,
while the studies of McCuaig and Guj (2006) and Guj et al.
(2007) deal with nickel sulfide deposits in the Yilgarn craton.
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 244
In most cases, the largest deposits in the distribution are
generally discovered early in the exploration history of the
terrane (Hronsky and Groves, 2008). Given the largest de-
posit size, the theoretical size of all possible deposits in the
terrane, i.e., its “natural” endowment, can then be predicted
using Zipf’s law. Deposits predicted by the Zipf curve but not
matched by known deposits represent the residual endow-
ment, i.e., deposits yet to be discovered. This methodology
provides a valuable indication of the exploration potential
and/or degree of maturity of the terrane.
Of interest is the fact that our databases of gold deposit
sizes at different times from 1973 to 2008 are fitted better by
the log-normal than the Pareto (Zipf) distribution. This is not
surprising in light of the review, conducted by Crovelli and
Barton (1995), of the relationship between the Pareto (Zipf)
and the log-normal distribution, which were simultaneously
introduced over three decades ago as appropriate probability
models for petroleum field size distributions. Crovelli and
Barton found that whereas there are strong commonalities
between these two distributions, there can also be significant
differences at their extremes, and the log-normal distribution
may lead to more conservative estimates of endowment.
Complexities also arise because of truncations in the sampling
range owing to technical and/or commercial considerations.
Drew (1990) also provides evidence that, based on early
1960s data, the size distribution of petroleum accumulations
in the Frio Strands Plain play, onshore Texas could have been
initially fitted by the normal distribution. Later in the 1970s,
a log-normal distribution fitted the data better, and by the late
1980s the fractal-related Pareto distribution provided the best
fit. This would suggest that initial exploration successes may
be skewed toward the larger accumulations and/or deposits
because of their more obvious footprints and may therefore
not be fully representative of the underlying Zipf distribution
of the whole population. The sample will become progres-
sively more representative as the terrane matures in terms of
progressive exploration. Irrespective of the fact that with in-
creased theoretical knowledge of fractals the related Pareto
distribution has achieved greater acceptance in academic cir-
cles, practice in the petroleum industry has largely remained
loyal to the use of the log-normal distribution in resources es-
timation and endowment studies.
Application of Zipf’s Law to the Gold Deposits
of the Yilgarn Craton
General considerations
The Zipf curve was applied to the resource databases of size
and number of gold deposits in the Yilgarn craton as they were
known at different points in time between 1973 and the end
of 2008. The aim was to determine retrospectively whether
this methodology would have been a valid exploration deci-
sion aid at those times, and to provide an idea of the rate at
which this terrane has progressively matured in terms of ex-
ploration potential for gold lode deposits over time.
The study also estimates the rate of growth in the resources
of individual deposits over time as a result of either continued
delineation drilling or renewed exploration campaigns in re-
sponse to changing gold prices or detection technology break-
throughs.
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GUJ ET AL.
It must be emphasized that the present study is strictly em-
pirical in nature. Its main objective is to determine whether
or not the use of rank statistics, such as the Zipf curve, pro-
vides a valid and predictive decision aid in mineral explo-
ration. This paper does not investigate the geologic genetic
reasons that have led to the relevant statistical distributions.
Databases of the size of gold deposits through time
An original database, including gold resources and new dis-
coveries as known in 1973, 1986, 1989, 1992, 2003, 2005, and
2008, was compiled from published and unpublished sources.
The size of the resources of the gold deposits in the database
is measured in terms of contained ounces of gold. Data used
in this study are provided in Appendix 1. The assumption is
that the reported amount includes both past production (the-
oretically, this should be grossed back to contained gold) as
well as measured and indicated resources. Ideally, the de-
posits resources should be assessed at a common and consis-
tently low cutoff grade. Unfortunately, information about the
cutoff grade used to estimate the size of individual deposits
and, in some cases, about their resources status was rarely
available. In addition, some deposits may appear individually
under different names in different years. Sometimes their re-
sources are aggregated into the total gold contained in a rele-
vant mining camp. As a consequence, considerable effort and
care was required to ensure consistency and comparability
over time.
The comprehensive 2008 deposit size database for the Yil-
garn craton, provided by Barrick Gold of Australia, shows sev-
eral thousand gold deposits and occurrences for which some
resources were delineated. The majority are very small and,
from the point of view of this study, insignificant. Indeed, de-
posits containing less than 0.4 Moz of gold aggregate to 4.8
Moz and account for just 1.5 percent of the total known gold
resources of the Yilgarn craton, which currently amount to
328.7 Moz. By contrast, the top 20 ranking deposits contain
241.4 Moz, representing 73.5 percent of the current gold en-
dowment, with the 10 top deposits accounting for 55.6 per-
cent, amounting to more than 182.7 Moz of gold.
As a consequence, all deposits in the database and particu-
larly the top ranking ones were subjected to a careful cleanup
and validation process. The aim was to improve comparabil-
ity from year to year and to ensure that any deposit, once dis-
covered, continues to appear in listings during later years;
that there be consistency of deposit names over time thus
avoiding repetitions and duplications; that various deposits in
each mine camp are either consistently aggregated or disag-
gregated through time; and the resources of each significant
individual deposit either increase or remain constant over
successive years, with any possible fall in resources is ex-
plained, if relevant information is available. The occasional
fall in the resource of a deposit over time is generally attrib-
utable to the effect of infill drilling of indicated resources not
supporting previously postulated continuity of the mineraliza-
tion.
This laborious process was necessary to improve the valid-
ity of the study. In the light of the quality of the information
available, it was decided to make use of published resource
data at four years (i.e., 1973, 1989, 2003, and 2008) to con-
struct relevant Zipf curves, and for five years (i.e., 1986, 1989,
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 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY
2003, 2005, and 2008) to estimate the growth in resources
with time.
Testing the assumption of log-normality
The deposit sizes in successive years represented in the
database constitute an increasing and presumably more rep-
resentative sample of the relatively homogeneous natural
gold endowment of the Yilgarn craton.
As already mentioned, the data points of known deposit
sizes for each of the four years selected for Zipf curve con-
struction, as well as related residual endowments, were sub-
jected to a goodness-of-fit test to find out which of various
continuous distributions fitted them best, according to the
Anderson-Darling goodness-of-fit criterion using the Crystal
Ball risk analysis software currently marketed by Oracle. All
the samples for the selected four years, except for 1973, dis-
played the log-normal distribution as the best fitting one and
had Anderson-Darling scores well below the critical threshold
of 1.5, in the range of 0.427 to 1.409 for known deposits and
0.365 to 0.776 for residual endowments, to a minimum size of
50,000 oz. The 1973 data displayed the Pareto as the best fit-
ting distribution. The Pareto distribution also generally
ranked fairly high behind the log-normal one as a fit for the
size distribution for the other selected years. These results
would indicate a propensity for the respective populations to
FIG. 2. Log-log representation of the Zipf curve as applied to the Yilgarn Gold deposits known in 1989.
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abide by some form of power law and support the use of the
Zipf curve for their analysis.
As already discussed, the database, in fact, contains some
genetic (i.e., a minority of intrusive-related gold deposits) as
well as chronological inhomogeneity (i.e., the age of gold de-
posits in the Yilgarn craton may be diachronous from west to
east, or north to south). This, however, was not considered
significant in the context of the present analysis.
Graphic displays for the Zipf curve analysis
The Zipf curve analysis of mineral deposit sizes can be
graphically presented using the log-log approach of Folisbee
(1977), applied by Fagan (2006), and the natural-scale ap-
proach first introduced by Guj et al. (2007). In the log-log ap-
proach, as exemplified by Figure 2, which pertains to the
1989 database, the x-axis displays the logarithm of the rank of
deposits, while the y-axis displays the logarithm of their re-
spective sizes.
The top line in Figure 2 represents the theoretical Zipf dis-
tribution of deposit sizes for a number of top-ranking deposits
equal to the number of known deposits in the 1989 database.
This represents the top end of but not the entire natural gold
endowment, originating from the largest known deposit (i.e.,
the Golden Mile) placed at rank 1. Because of log-normality,
the theoretical Zipf deposit distribution plots as a straight line
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on the log-log graph. The area under the Zipf line represents
the theoretical gold inventory up to the lowest ranking de-
posit displayed.
The second line represents the size distribution of all gold
deposits known at a given time in descending size order. This
line also originates from a point corresponding to the size of
the rank 1 deposit; however, all the other points in this exam-
ple (but not in all examples) rest below the theoretical Zipf
line. The sum of the differences in value between the theo-
retical and observed deposit size for each corresponding rank
represents by how much the cumulative gold contained in the
known deposits falls short of the theoretical aggregate esti-
mated by the Zipf curve for the same number of top-ranking
deposits. Mismatches between the theoretical and actual dis-
tributions represent missing or residual gold inventory. In the
1989 example, for instance, the total Zipf-predicted natural
endowment for deposits larger than 0.4 Moz was 226.9 Moz,
whereas the corresponding known deposits larger than 0.4
Moz amounted to 75.5-Moz deposits, leaving 151.4 Moz to be
discovered. This difference decreases with successive discov-
eries over the years and provides a relative, but not a com-
prehensive and absolute, measure of the increasing explo-
ration maturity for a terrane.
FIG. 3. Comparison of the natural-scale Zipf curves for 1989 and 2003 highlighting the lifting of the curve due to the in-
crease in the rank 1 Golden Mile and the increase or decrease in rank of deposits the resources of which increased at a rate
higher or lower than those of the rank 1 deposit, respectively.
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GUJ ET AL.
In the natural-scale approach the x- and y-axes represent
the rank and size of individual deposits, respectively, plotted
using a natural scale (Figs. 3–7). The theoretical Zipf distrib-
ution of deposit sizes is a concave curve sloping down from
the rank 1 deposit with linking dots representing the rank and
size of all theoretically possible deposits in the original natural
endowment. The bars, by contrast, represent the deposits
known in that year individually positioned to match as close as
possible a corresponding Zipf-predicted estimate. The advan-
tage of this mode of display is that it visually identifies clear
gaps in the theoretical Zipf distribution, which could be filled
either by future new discoveries or by significant increases in
the resources of known deposits following better delineation
over time. Such an event would lift their previous rank, mak-
ing them jump over previously higher ranking deposits. The
residual or undiscovered endowment is estimated by sum-
ming up all of the individual missing or unmatched deposits
predicted by the Zipf curve.
To the extent that the Zipf curve is generated as a function
of the size of the largest deposit, any progressive increase in
its resources over times lifts the entire curve, as exemplified
in Figure 3, which portrays the effect of the increase in the
resources of the rank 1 Golden Mile deposit from 35.4 Moz
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 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY
in 1989 to 68.3 Moz in 2003. Figure 3 also shows how the gold
resource of a deposit will increase proportionally at a rate
higher than that of the rank 1 deposit. For example, the Bod-
dington deposit jumped from rank 11 in 1989 to rank 2 in
2003, while the Laverton deposit fell from rank 25 to 29, even
though its resources increased substantially, but at a rate
lower than that of the Golden Mile deposit.
The two measures of residual endowment derived from the
log-log and the natural-scale approaches down to the same
rank should be the same.
Possible resource predictions in 1973
Rowlands and Sampey (1977) applied Zipf’s Law to esti-
mate the natural and residual gold endowment of the Yilgarn
craton, using estimates of the size of gold deposits extracted
from historical records of the Western Australian Mines De-
partment from 1954 to 1973. These authors compared the
size of the gold deposits discovered up to 1973 against those
estimated by the Zipf distribution and then made the follow-
ing predictions about the number and size of undiscovered
gold deposits remaining in the Yilgarn craton: (1) cumulative
gold production to 1973 from deposits ranking up to 115, was
43.2 Moz of gold, (2) the total residual undiscovered gold re-
sources up to rank 115 was 186.1 Moz, (3) the estimate of the
gross natural gold endowment of the Yilgarn craton was 229.2
Moz, (4) only 19 percent of the “natural” gold endowment
had been recovered up to 1973, and (5) at least 27 more ore-
bodies, each containing more than 1 Moz of gold, remained
undiscovered in the Yilgarn craton at that time. Of these de-
posits, six were predicted to exceed 5 Moz of contained gold.
FIG. 4. Zipf curve using natural-scale technique on 1973 Yilgarn gold deposits.
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Figure 4 gives the known and predicted deposits based on
the data of Rowlands and Sampey (1977).
All undiscovered deposits larger than 0.4 Moz aggregate to
a residual endowment of 136.8 Moz, which when added to
the 42.8 Moz contained in the known deposits, gives a total
natural endowment of 179.5 Moz. These estimates are lower
than those by Rowlands and Sampey (1977) and the differ-
ence can be attributed to the 0.4 Moz cutoff adopted in this
paper.
If anything, the estimates of Rowlands and Sampey
(1977) were approximate and conservative because they
constructed the Zipf’s curve using historical production,
i.e., the gold recovered up to 1973 from the 17 largest de-
posits, not the total gold contained in their resources. It
could be argued that in 1973, due to the low gold prices and
high cutoff grades, most of the deposits were considered
exhausted and, therefore, production and resources would
have been of the same order of magnitude. Nonetheless,
they were aware that gold production continued in a mi-
nority of mines between 1973 and 1977, including the
Mount Charlotte, North Kalgoorlie, Mount Magnet, and
Norseman deposits, where resources and reserves contin-
ued to be delineated ahead of development. As a result, the
predictions of Rowlands and Sampey (1977) seemed con-
servative. Their predictions were received with consider-
able scepticism by the exploration community which be-
lieved, at the time, that the Golden Mile was an isolated,
exceptional occurrence against a background of relatively
small deposits and that there was little potential for truly
sizeable future discoveries.
247
 248
Reviewing the predictions from 1973 to 1989
and making further predictions
An estimate of the number and size of gold deposits in the
Yilgarn craton, including discoveries up to 1989, was pro-
duced by Groves et al. (1990). The present authors fitted
their data to the Zipf curve, providing an insight as to how
many of the deposits predicted using the database of Row-
lands and Sampey (1977) were discovered between 1973 and
1989 (Fig. 5).
The Zipf curve generated using the 1989 data shows that a
resurgence in gold exploration resulted in a number of both
greenfield and brownfield discoveries filling some of the gaps
predicted by Rowlands and Sampey (1977), while new gaps
were created by the significant increase in the resources of
the rank 1 deposit.
In summary, the total gold endowment in the rank 1
Golden Mile deposit had increased from 35.4 to 43.1 Moz,
lifting the entire Zipf curve. As a consequence, the gross nat-
ural Yilgarn endowment in 1989 for deposits containing more
than 0.4 Moz increased from 179.5 to 226.9 Moz, and the
amount of gold contained in undiscovered deposits increased
from 136.6 to 151.4 Moz,
Total known resources increased from 42.8 to 75.5 Moz, in-
dicating that 33.3 percent of the total gold endowment had
been discovered by 1989 and that 29 deposits containing in
FIG. 5. Zipf curve using the natural-scale technique on 1989 Yilgarn gold deposits.
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GUJ ET AL.
excess of 1 Moz remained to be discovered in the Yilgarn cra-
ton. These included seven deposits, each containing more
than 5 Moz of gold, with three deposits ranging between 10.8
and 21.6 Moz.
Of the 27 undiscovered deposits predicted in 1973, 13 de-
posits greater than 1 Moz had been discovered by 1989, ei-
ther as new discoveries (including Boddington, St. Ives,
Reedys) or by significant increases in resources of already
known camps following brownfield and mine-site exploration
(e.g., Paddington, Laverton, Wiluna, and Great Victoria).
Reviewing the predictions from 1989 to 2003
and making further predictions
Fagan (2006) analyzed the gold endowment of the Yilgarn
craton by the end of 2003, some 30 years after the study by
Rowlands and Sampey (1977), using the Gosselin and Dubé
(2005) world gold database. Fagan’s results are broadly con-
sistent with the results of the current study and show that the
gross natural Yilgarn endowment in 2003 for deposits greater
than 0.4 Moz was 401.5 Moz (Fagan obtained 326.3 Moz up
to rank 50) and that the amount of gold contained in undis-
covered deposits was 150.4 Moz (Fagan: 116.9 Moz up to
rank 50).
By 2003, 62.5 percent of the total gold endowment had
been discovered, with 35 deposits each containing more than
248
 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY
1 Moz of gold remaining to be discovered in the Yilgarn.
These included nine in excess of 2 Moz, with the top three
ranging from 9.8 to 22.8 Moz.
Of the 27 undiscovered orebodies predicted in 1973, 17
orebodies greater than 1 Moz by the end of 2003 had been
generated by either new greenfield discoveries or by signifi-
cant increases in resources in known camps following mine-
site and brownfield exploration,
The total gold endowment in the Golden Mile deposit had
almost doubled, to 68.3 Moz, from the 1973 estimate of 35.4
Moz, significantly lifting the Zipf’s curve and generating new
gaps, thereby increasing the predicted number of undiscov-
ered deposits and the residual endowment. A significant lift
in the Zipf distribution and gold endowment resulted from
new discoveries in the Yilgarn and changes in exploration and
mining technology (open pit mining, mechanized under-
ground mining, and carbon-in-pulp, or CIP, leaching) (Fig.
6a, b).
Figure 6b shows that some deposit sizes are larger than the
corresponding Zipf-estimated rank; these overendowments
indicate that the size of the largest deposit inventory, in this
case Golden Mile or an undiscovered larger deposit, has been
underestimated. When the actual endowments are less than
the predicted ones, the rate of discovery of new inventory for
lesser deposits is lagging behind the discovery of new inven-
tory for the largest deposit.
Reviewed predictions from 2003 in 2008
and making further predictions
The 2003 predictions were compared against a 2008 gold
database compiled from unpublished sources and provided
by Barrick Gold Australia Ltd. (Fig. 7a, b), showing that the
gross Yilgarn natural endowment for deposits in excess of 0.4
Moz increased in the period 2003 to 2008 from 401.5 to 431.8
Moz, while the residual endowment of undiscovered gold re-
sources decreased from 150.4 to 107.9 Moz.
A total of 323.9 Moz, representing 75 percent of the natural
gold endowment, had been discovered up to 2008, with 14
deposits larger than 1 Moz of gold remaining undiscovered in
the Yilgarn. These include two significant predicted deposits
of 17.2 and 22.9 Moz, respectively, but most of the other pre-
dicted deposits are relatively smaller (i.e., 1.6 Moz or less).
Furthermore, all intermediate gaps estimated by previous
Zipf distributions had essentially been filled by either new
discoveries or significant increases in the resources of known
camps by mine-site and brownfield exploration.
No significant new gold camps were discovered in the Yil-
garn in the period 2003 to 2008. The only change was an in-
crease in the endowment of existing camps. This was due to
exploration success from brownfield exploration and an in-
crease in the gold price, causing the break-even or incremen-
tal cutoff grades to be lowered. Some of these increases in the
resources of specific camps were very significant, as discussed
in the following section, and resulted in their jumping up the
Zipf curve.
The overendowment for deposits ranked 6 to about 20 in
Figure 7 suggests that the inventory of the Golden Mile de-
posit and that for deposits ranked 2 to 5 are still significantly
understated. This is not surprising as the maximum depth of
drilling beneath some of these deposits, which has often been
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249
determined primarily by an open-cut mining focus, is com-
paratively shallow relative to their strike length.
Growth in deposit resources and its effect on the Zipf curve
The size of gold deposits at any given time is a function of
the amount of exploration activity that has taken place up to
that time, which is highly dependent on the prevailing price
of gold and equity market sentiment. Exploration effective-
ness is, in turn, a function of both progressive and step
improvements in exploration targeting methodology and
detection technology (e.g., more sensitive geophysical and
geochemical analytical procedures resulting in a better un-
derstanding of the regolith environment). Furthermore, con-
tinuous and quantum improvements in mining and metal-
lurgy (e.g., bulk open-cut mining and efficient CIP and
leaching technologies) tend to reduce the unit cost of extrac-
tion and, as a consequence, to lower the marginal cutoff grade
used to estimate resources and the average grade of ore
mined, as shown in Figure 8. These changes stimulated ex-
ploration, bringing about the discovery of new greenfields,
brownfields, and mine site deposits, better delineation of
known deposits, and discovery of near-mine satellites, the de-
velopment of low-grade and previously economically mar-
ginal deposits, and, as a result, significant growth in the esti-
mates of the residual gold endowment by our analysis.
Improvements in exploration and exploitation methods and
a rising gold price will, on one hand, lead to expansion of the
exploration search space (Hronsky, 2009), i.e., the ability to
detect and economically extract resources from previously
undetectable or subeconomic deposits and, on the other
hand, to progressive depletion and maturing of the known
gold resources of a terrane. These two effects are simultane-
ous and counteract each other. Significant expansion of the
residual endowment of a terrane may occur if exploration in-
creases the resources of the highest ranking deposits, but in
most cases depletion outstrips increases in resources.
Expansion of the resources of known camps is particularly
significant in the case of Archean lode gold deposits, given
their structural complexity and their high aspect ratios, re-
sulting in relatively small footprints, making them not only
hard to discover, but also difficult to fully delineate. In most
cases, the resources quoted following the discovery of de-
posits are very conservative and tend to grow significantly
over time. In the past, when selective underground mining of
relatively high grade ore was prevalent, exploration tended to
be carried out just ahead of production, primarily through un-
derground drilling and adits, resulting in some cumulatively
significant producers (e.g., Mount Magnet, Norseman) never
accounting for significant resources and reserves in any year
of their mine life. Presumably, many of these operations
would prove to have been suboptimal if compared to alterna-
tive mine designs and throughputs based on optimization of
better delineated orebodies.
In a minority of cases, closer delineation drilling may result
in decreases in resources, albeit accompanied by an increase
in the level of confidence in the related estimates. from indi-
cated to measured.
This study quantifies the growth in resources for various
gold deposits that were either known or discovered after1986.
Besides the data for 1989, 2003, and 2008 already used to
249
 250 GUJ ET AL.

FIG. 6. (a) Zipf curve using the natural-scale technique on 2003 Yilgarn gold deposits. The area between the rank 1 and
the rank 30 deposit is enlarged in Figure 6 (b). Figure 6 (b) Area enlarged from Figure 6 (a).

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 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY 251

FIG. 7. (a). Zipf curve using the natural-scale technique on 2008 Yilgarn gold deposits. The area between the rank 1 and
the rank 30 deposit is enlarged in Figure 7 (b).Figure 7 (b) Area enlarged from Figure 7 (a).

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 252
FIG. 8. Average mined gold grade from the Yilgarn gold deposits.
construct the relevant Zipf curves, this analysis also included
less comprehensive data for 1986. The 1973 data were not
used to calculate the rate of growth because they represent
gold production rather than endowment and because of their
lower comparability to the data from following years. Fur-
thermore, 1989 was after the advent of CIP leaching and dra-
matic spikes in the gold price, all in the late 1970s through
early 1980s, thereby eliminating these discontinuities from
the analysis. The rate of growth in resources over time for de-
posits exceeding 10 Moz, between 5 and 10 Moz and 1 to 5
Moz, are provided in Figures 9, 10 and 11, respectively.
On average, the resources of most gold lode deposits tend
to grow over time, as shown in Table 1, at an average, un-
weighted, annualized rate of 12.5 percent per annum, within
a range of –14.2 to +62.0 percent per annum. Growth over
time was driven by both continuous increments owing to nu-
merous small- to medium-size, and sporadic major brown-
field and mine-site discoveries (e.g., the Leonora and Plu-
tonic camps), but principally by discontinuous events, such as
the shift in emphasis for the Golden Mile from underground
to open-cut mining and the delineation of primary basement
resources underlying the oxide resources at Boddington.
The explanation for declines in resources can generally be
attributed to infill delineation drilling not supporting conti-
nuity of mineralization previously outlined by widely spaced
drilling. Reduction in the uncertainty of a resource from indi-
cated to measured status is frequently accompanied by a de-
crease in tonnages. This, for instance, was the case for the
Wallaby and for St. Ives deposits, for which resources were
significantly expanded by broadly spaced drilling by Western
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GUJ ET AL.
Mining Corporation prior to the sale of this project to Gold-
fields.
The tendency for the resources of Archean gold deposits to
grow over time may be one of the explanations for the degree
to which the capitalization of gold mining companies tends to
exceed the net present value of their individual deposits cal-
culated using appropriate estimates of revenue and costs and
an adequate risk-and time-adjusted rate of discount. This dif-
ference has previously been largely attributed to the real op-
tion value inherent in the investment and operational flexibil-
ity of gold mining operations in light of their net present value
sensitivity to the gold price volatility (Twite, 2002, p.134).
While these factors are obviously of significant importance in
valuing gold deposits, it is suggested here that valuations
mostly based on static resources compliant with the require-
ments of the Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC), with
generally relatively low consideration being given to explo-
ration potential, have resulted in insufficient weight being at-
tributed to the potential for significant future growth in re-
sources in determining the real option value of this type of
deposits.
Progressive discoveries and increasing maturity of
the Yilgarn craton for gold exploration
The relationship between the top five or 10 deposits is crit-
ical in determining the overall terrane endowment and matu-
rity as they collectively represent 50 to 65 percent of the total
endowment (Table 2). In this context, maturity could be de-
fined as the ratio between the known and the natural gold en-
dowment as estimated at any point in time.
252
 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY 253

FIG. 9. Growth in resources over time for gold deposits greater than 10 Moz.

Growth in natural endowment over time may be the result of
progressive growth in the size of the rank 1 Golden Mile de-
posit lifting the entire curve and creating more undiscovered
gaps. Each incremental increase in the largest deposit in theory
generates a fourfold increase in the total gold inventory.
Alternatively, progressive increases in the resources of
lower-ranking deposits make them climb up the Zipf curve,
jumping over previously larger deposits and filling, together
with new discoveries, previous gaps in the size distribution.
However, if deposits sizes continue to grow after they have
filled the top ranks and become larger than the correspond-
ing Zipf-predicted sizes, pressure is placed on the adequacy
of the size estimate for the rank 1 deposit. This may indicate
that either the rank 1 deposit has not yet been adequately de-
lineated or that, in fact, it is not the largest deposit in the pop-
ulation and that a larger, as-yet undiscovered deposit may
exist or may have existed and been eroded.
For example, the present Zipf distribution would be quite
different if the Golden Mile deposit had been completely
eroded, because even though its absence would be recog-
nized, this deposit could never be discovered and as a conse-
quence, the residual gold endowment would be overesti-
mated by about 22.2 percent due to its absence alone (Table
2). Similarly, some of the residual gold inventory may never
be discovered because the Zipf curve does not discriminate
deposits which have been eroded.
As a consequence, a terrane maturity can be defined with
an acceptable degree of confidence only if one is certain that
the largest deposit has been identified and its ultimate size
fully delineated. In this study, the exploration maturity of the
Yilgarn craton progressed from 19 percent of the natural en-
dowment as estimated in 1973, rising to 33 percent by 1989,
62.5 percent by 2003, and 75 percent by 2008.
The uncertainty inherent in the estimates of the top-rank-
ing deposits sizes also implies that at any point in time the
estimated residual endowment is conservative. Figure 12
provides an indication of how the residual endowment has
been decreasing over time from 1989 through 2003, to 2008.
The three lines link the first to the 99th percentile of the de-
posit size distributions of the relevant residual endowments,
representing all undiscovered deposits (gaps) in the related
Zipf curves down to a minimum size of 50,000 oz. These
lines indicate the probability that any discovery will be
smaller than a certain size. It can be seen how in 1989 there
was a 1 percent probability that a possible discovery would
exceed 2.36 Moz and how the corresponding size at the 1

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 254
FIG. 10. Growth in resources over time for gold deposits containing between 5 and 10 Moz.
percent confidence level fell to 1.5 Moz by 2008. Similarly, the
relevant median sizes also fell from about 0.34 to 0.26 Moz.
Whereas in 1989 there was about 0.25 percent probability that
a possible discovery would be world-class, perhaps exceeding
5 Moz of gold (Schodde and Hronsky, 2006), now its proba-
bility has fallen to less than 0.1 percent. This is consistent with
the picture presented by the Zipf curve for 2008 (Fig. 7),
which shows that with the exception of two large, relatively
improbable, undiscovered deposits at rank 3 and 4, the bulk
of the gaps now relate to deposits that contain < 1.6 Moz).
Thus, in formulating exploration strategy, focus must not be
on the size distribution of known deposits but on that of those
still to be found. From this perspective, and in view of the ex-
cellent rate of growth in the resources of various camps, there
is no doubt that the Yilgarn craton, while still capable of gen-
erating handsome returns in terms of brownfields and mine-
site discoveries, has now matured in terms of major discover-
ies. This justifies that major companies with operations in the
Yilgarn craton persevere with near-mine exploration to maxi-
mize the option value inherent in camp-scale brownfields
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GUJ ET AL.
exploration, while devoting their regional exploration budgets
in other areas with the potential to find the next big mineral-
ized system.
Other geologic and statistical considerations
The log-log cumulative frequency graph of Figure 13 dis-
plays the 2008 known deposit sizes in excess of 50,000 oz. The
graph shows that the bulk of the deposit sizes plot along a
straight line but also breaks in slope at about 300,000 oz and
8 Moz. A break at the smaller end of the size distribution is
not uncommon and has been discussed by a number of au-
thors—including, for example, Rose (2001)—in the context of
petroleum accumulations and can be easily explained by in-
sufficient delineation of relatively small deposits. The break at
about 8 Moz is more significant, in that it cannot be explained
in terms of inadequate deep drill testing of large deposits that
would increase the change in slope, but may indicate the
presence of two populations.
This size threshold is close to the discontinuity in value,
corresponding to deposits larger than approximately 6 Moz,
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 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY 255

FIG. 11. Growth in resources for gold deposits containing between 1 and 5 Moz.

observed by Schodde and Hronsky (2006), that in their opin-
ion, defines world-class deposits in general. These authors do
not attempt to explain the reasons for this discontinuity; they
merely suggest that it may have to do with the nature of the
mineralizing processes rather than economic considerations.
It appears as if the Golden Mile, Boddington, St. Ives,
Leonora, Plutonic, and two large missing deposits may belong
to a separate population of world-class gold deposits with a
very narrow range of sizes but containing a very high gold in-
ventory. The other deposits appear to have a very wide range
but a lower gold inventory.
Unfortunately, the Zipf distribution has no spatial connota-
tions. From a Zipf distribution, one can infer the number and
size of missing deposits but not their location. If more than
one population of deposits, however, is suspected, an attempt
should be made to separate them according to their differ-
ences and to construct separate Zipf curves. The separation
may involve grouping the data either geographically, i.e., by
terrane subsets or camps, or genetically, i.e., by separating in-
trusive-related deposits from orogenic lode deposits, using
chronology and other factors. This approach may have impor-
tant exploration targeting significance.
Although the present analysis is generally robust from an
empirical point of view, it does, nonetheless, have some major
caveats in that all gold mineral deposits in the Yilgarn craton
were grouped as a single gold mineral system. This may be
broadly valid, as most dated deposits lie within a geologic win-
dow of ca. 25 Ma. However, some subdivisions may be war-
ranted in future studies:
1. In terms of the age of the host terrane deposits in the
Southern Cross area are hosted in a 2.9 Ga old belt, whereas
the Norseman-Wiluna belt is dominantly 2.7 to 2.63 Ga.
However, currently available age dates indicate broadly simi-
lar ages of gold mineralization irrespective of the different
ages of the host terranes, therefore, potentially reflecting the
same large-scale mineral system.
2. In terms of geographic distribution, a comparison of the
Murchison, Southern Cross, Eastern Goldfields, and south-
west gneiss terranes would show different overall endowment

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 256 GUJ ET AL.

TABLE 1. Growth in Gold Resources over Time for All Deposits Greater than 1 Moz

1989 Endowment 2008 Endowment

1973 Endowment (Solomon, Groves, 2003 Endowment (unpublished sources)
(Rowlands and Sampey, 1977) and Jaques, 2000) (Gosselin and Dube, 2005) supplied by Barrick Gold
Rank Camp Moz Camp Moz Camp Moz Camp Moz

1 Golden Mile 35.443 Golden Mile 43.095 Golden Mile 68.285 Golden Mile 68.779
2 Leonora 2.638 Boddington 3.813 Boddington 35.160 Boddington 35.171
3 Norseman 2.243 Leonora 2.919 St Ives 15.873 St. Ives 13.039
4 Mt Magnet 1.294 Big Bell 2.871 Mt Magnet 10.935 Leonora 12.702
5 Big Bell 0.731 Norseman 2.730 Leonora 8.783 Plutonic 10.328
6 Bullfinch 0.417 St. Ives 2.334 Sunrise Dam 8.605 Paddington 9.514
7 Mount Ida 0.248 Laverton 2.035 Norseman 7.433 Mount Magnet 8.520
8 Hampton Plains 0.135 Mount Magnet 2.016 Nimary-Jundee 7.303 Kanowna Belle 8.425
9 Southern Cross 0.096 Wiluna 1.691 Paddington 6.597 Norseman 8.353
10 Carbine 0.088 Day Dawn 1.296 Plutonic 6.286 Granny Smith 7.906
11 Coolgardie 0.073 Westonia 1.161 Kanowna Belle 6.175 Mount Pleasant 7.154
12 Davyhurst 0.068 Marvel Loch 1.157 New Celebration 5.594 Sunrise Dam 7.108
13 Golden Valley 0.068 Great Victoria 1.157 Wallaby 5.544 Agnew 6.655
14 Haoma 0.066 Reedys 1.016 Big Bell 5.093 Wiluna 6.049
15 Marvel Loch 0.064 Mount Morgans 0.948 Wiluna 5.055 Meekatharra 5.967
16 Day Dawn 0.051 Meekatharra 0.900 Tarmoola 4.212 Marvel Loch 5.396
17 Menzies 0.049 Paddington 0.868 Bronzewing 3.617 Nimary-Jundee 5.273
18 Bullfinch 0.694 Granny Smith 3.257 New Celebration 5.118
19 King of Creation 0.611 Carosue Dam 3.198 Big Bell 4.983
20 Sandstone 0.601 Laverton 2.355 Tropicana 4.973
21 Porphyry 0.572 Bounty 2.259 Binduli 4.081
22 Southern Cross 0.569 Meekatharra 2.258 Tarmoola 3.753
23 Tuckabianna 0.431 Kundana 2.176 Lawlers 3.661
24 Mt Gibson 0.386 Yilgarn Star 2.149 Laverton 3.362
25 Nevoria 0.350 Thunderbox 2.015 Westonia 2.941
26 Gidgee 0.296 Mt McClure 1.926 Lindsays Find 2.919
27 Edjudina 0.206 Day Dawn 1.791 Wallaby 2.803
28 Burtville 0.132 Gidgee 1.688 Darlot 2.796
29 Katanning 0.035 Darlot 1.371 Carosue Dam 2.690
30 Coolgardie 1.299 Cue 2.487

TABLE 2. Relationship between the Theoretical Size of Deposits Generated by the Zipf Curve and the Corresponding Cumulative
Gold Inventory, Showing that the Rank 1 Deposit Accounts for Approximately 22.2% of the Inventory

Rank Zipf’s inventory Zipf’s inventory as a percentage of the top 50 ranks Zipf’s cumulative % inventory

1 100.0 22.2% 22.2%

2 50.0 11.1% 33.3%
3 33.3 7.4% 40.7%
4 25.0 5.6% 46.3%
5 20.0 4.4% 50.7%
6 16.7 3.7% 54.5%
7 14.3 3.2% 57.6%
8 12.5 2.8% 60.4%
9 11.1 2.5% 62.9%
10 10.0 2.2% 65.1%
11 9.1 2.0% 67.1%
12 8.3 1.9% 69.0%
13 7.7 1.7% 70.7%
14 7.1 1.6% 72.3%
15 6.7 1.5% 73.8%
16 6.3 1.4% 75.1%
17 5.9 1.3% 76.4%
18 5.6 1.2% 77.7%
19 5.3 1.2% 78.9%
20 5.0 1.1% 80.0%
21 4.8 1.1% 81.0%
22 4.5 1.0% 82.0%
23 4.3 1.0% 83.0%
24 4.2 0.9% 83.9%
25 4.0 0.9% 84.8%
26 3.8 0.9% 85.7%
27 3.7 0.8% 86.5%
28 3.6 0.8% 87.3%
29 3.4 0.8% 88.1%
30 3.3 0.7% 88.8%

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 A TIME-SERIES AUDIT OF ZIPF’S LAW AS A MEASURE OF TERRANE ENDOWMENT AND MATURITY 257

Log-probability plot of the “Residual” gold

endowment of the Yilgarn Craton
as estimated in 1989, 2003 and 2008

99
98

95
90
Cumulative probability

80
70

50

30
20

10
5
2
1
1e+5 1e+6
Deposit size (Moz)
2008 “Residual” endowment
2003 “Residual” endowment
1989 “Residual” endowment

FIG. 12. Log-probability plot of the “residual gold endowments of the Yilgarn craton as estimated in 1989, 2003, and 2008.

curves for the various terranes, with the Eastern Goldfields
displaying a higher overall endowment owing to some inher-
ent geologic process and possibly intensity of past exploration.
Creating separate endowment curves, based initially on broad
terrane definitions rather than individual belts, would be an
ideal way to show the terranes upon which to focus. For in-
stance, such an approach would show that the southwest
Gneiss terrane may be very underexplored, as it only has one
20 Moz deposit (Boddington) and some scattered showings.
3. It may also be legitimate to separate the Boddington de-
posit because it is part of an intrusion-related system (Mc-
Cuaig and Guj, 2006), whereas the vast majority of the other
gold deposits in the Yilgarn craton are orogenic gold systems
(Groves et al., 1998, p. 8). This would further enhance the
prospectivity of the southwest Gneiss terrane for additional
significant gold discoveries. At the same time, it would open
a new, significant, undiscovered gap in the Zipf curve for oro-
genic gold deposits in the Yilgarn craton.
Although it is logical to separate and to create individual
Zipf curves for deposits that formed in different ways, this
may not necessarily be applicable to separating cogenetic de-
posits contained in smaller subterranes or camps. The size
distributions generated by the related individual Zipf curves
may or may not be capable of being matched exactly to those
generated by the Zipf curve for the all-encompassing group—
e.g., for the orogenic gold deposits of the Yilgarn craton. Is-
sues may arise if the subterrane containing the overall rank 1
deposit is too narrowly defined because this would make it
more highly prospective than any other and, while there may
be some intuitive logic to this, the statistical validity of such
inference may be rather suspect. By contrast, difficulties in
combining various camps into the overall distribution may
also arise if some of the individual camps are led by relatively
large deposits, as this may generate a crowding in the high
ranks of the all-encompassing Zipf curve.
Unfortunately, these complexities take place against a back-
ground of inadequately delineated deposit sizes and natural
endowment estimates that continue to grow with time, which
place the entire process within reasonably broad bands of
confidence. After all, we are comparing the size of de-
posits—some of which may have been originally outcropping

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 258
FIG. 13. Cumulative percentage gold inventory in the Yilgarn craton as of 2008.
with others buried under hundred of meters of laterite.
Some may feature steep aspect ratios, making their full de-
lineation difficult, whereas others are subhorizontal and
blind, making their discovery difficult but their delineation
relatively easy. In addition, deposits are rarely drill-tested to
a depth of 1,200 m or more (e.g., Golden Mile deposit) as op-
posed to the prevalent depth of systematic drilling that in the
Yilgarn craton seldom exceeds 50 to 100 m at the RAB
drilling stage and 100 to 250 m when delineating potential
open-cut resources.
Conclusions
In summary, this study supports the following conclusions.
1. Despite general weakness in the relevant databases and
uncertainty in the underlying geologic processes which deter-
mine the size distribution of mineral deposits, a power law re-
lationship, as exemplified by the Zipf curve, often defines the
frequency distributions of mineral deposit sizes. This is par-
ticularly evident in the case of the Archean lode gold deposits
in the Yilgarn craton.
2. Incomplete and progressive delineation of the top-rank-
ing deposit results in underestimation of the natural and
residual, or as-yet-undiscovered mineral endowments of a
terrane at any point in time.
3. The degree of exploration maturity of a terrane, ex-
pressed as the ratio between the known and the natural en-
dowments, is relatively accurate and represents a valuable
input in determining not only the probability of economic
discovery but also the probability that a possible discovery
may exceed an exploration company’s minimum target, thus
justifying investment in a terrane. In the case of the Yilgarn
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GUJ ET AL.
craton, 19 percent of the natural endowment as estimated in
1973 had been discovered, rising to 33 percent by 1989, 62.5
percent by 2003 and 75 percent by 2008. With most of the
large deposits, except for two, already discovered by 2008, the
main potential for gold exploration in the Yilgarn craton now
rests in brownfield and mine-site exploration.
4. The resources of gold deposits known in or discovered
since 1989 have on average grown by 12.5 percent per
annum as a result of both continuous brownfield and mine-
site exploration successes and of a number of infrequent but
substantial greenfield discoveries, which, however, have de-
creased in number over time. This testifies to the prospec-
tivity of the Yilgarn craton and its capacity to continue to
support significant returns on brownfield and mine-site ex-
ploration investment in the future, with significant green-
fields discoveries primarily due to leaps in exploration
methodology and detection technology, broadening the ex-
ploration search space.
5. There may be some merit to breaking up the current
study database into various broad terranes and repeating the
excercise at a disaggregated level. This may prove very fruit-
ful in the somewhat unique and relatively underexplored
southwest Gneiss terrane, where the Boddington deposit may
constitute the largest of an intrusive-related population of
gold deposits distinguished from the prevalent orogenic de-
posits and the rank 1 deposit (Golden Mile) in a currently
poorly populated Zipf distribution of known deposits, which
would significantly enhance the prospectivity of this terrane.
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