Natural Resources Research, Vol. 31, No.

1, February 2022 ( 2021)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-021-09989-0

Original Paper

Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods

on Resource Tonnages in Highly Intruded Coal Deposits

Kane Maxwell ,1,2 Mojtaba Rajabi ,1 and Joan Esterle 1

Received 12 July 2021; accepted 20 November 2021

Published online: 16 January 2022

Coal resource tonnage estimates are reliant on spatial modeling of critical data including in-
situ density. To model coal in-situ density, numerous methods are available including
deterministic, geostatistical, and machine learning-based methods. In most studies the focus
is on comparing differing spatial model method accuracy, however, in this study, the focus is
on determining if different in-situ density spatial model methods materially impact resource
tonnage estimates. This study used data from an active open-cut coal mine located in the
Bowen Basin, Queensland Australia. The coal mine has extensive areas that are impacted by
lamprophyre and dolerite intrusion. This study compared tonnage estimates derived from in-
situ density modeling from four spatial model methods including inverse distance weighting,
ordinary kriging, geographic quantile regression forest, and random forest regression krig-
ing. This study found that, at local scale and in areas highly impacted by intrusion, variation
in tonnage estimates between in-situ density model methods was up to 4.40%. This variation
was considered material as it was higher than the error of each spatial model. It is, therefore
recommended that, especially in coal deposits which are impacted by intrusion, spatial
model methods are carefully selected and evaluated.
KEY WORDS: Coal resource, Spatial modeling, Reserve estimates, Machine learning, Geostatistics,
Intrusion.

INTRODUCTION sparse, spatial regression (modeling) is used to pre-

In resource and reserve estimation, coal ton-
nage is calculated by multiplying the in-situ density
of coal by its thickness and areal extent (Guidelines
Review Committee, 2014). Coal seam thickness is
generally determined from drill hole intercepts,
which are verified by geophysical logs, while in-situ
density is usually calculated from laboratory-ana-
lyzed relative density and moisture obtained from
drill core samples (Preston & Sanders, 1993). Be-
cause the sample density of these data is generally
1
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of
Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia.
2
To whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: kane.
maxwell@uq.net.au
dict these values across an entire extent of interest
(Maxwell et al., 2021a). These spatial predictions
allow for the estimation of tonnage across an entire
coal deposit area.
Spatial modeling of coal seam thickness and
areal extent involves generating individual coal roof
and floor surfaces that adhere to topological rules to
account for geological complexities such as faulting,
seam stratigraphic relationship, limits to weathering
horizons, seam pinch outs, seam wash-outs, seam
interactions with intrusion boundaries and so on
(Caumon et al., 2009). There are several available
spatial model methods for the generation of these
surfaces including triangulated irregular network
(triangulation), finite element method, geostatistical,
and implicit surfaces, which correspond to iso values

499
1520-7439/22/0200-0499/0  2021 International Association for Mathematical Geosciences
500
of a 3D scalar field or a mathematical function
(Caumon et al., 2009; Hillier et al., 2014; Gonçalves
et al., 2017; de la Varga et al., 2019). These surfaces
are usually modeled in commercial geological soft-
ware, and the exact implementation of the topo-
logical rules and method is usually proprietary (de la
Varga et al., 2019). In resource estimates that are
reported on the Australian Stock Exchange, the
most common methods for modeling seam surfaces
include proprietary versions of finite element
method and triangulation, which are implemented in
commercial geological software packages (Data-
mine, 2019; Maptek, 2019; Maxwell, 2020).
For coal quality analyses such as relative
density and moisture, there are many available
methods including deterministic (e.g., inverse dis-
tance weighting or IDW), geostatistical (e.g.,
kriging, sequential Gaussian simulation), machine
learning (e.g., quantile regression forest), and hy-
brid methods (e.g., random forest regression krig-
ing) (Heriawan & Koike, 2008a, b; Li et al., 2011;
Ertunç et al., 2013; Olea, 2013; Srivastava, 2013;
Tercan & Sohrabian, 2013; Webber et al., 2013; Li
& Heap, 2014; Jeuken et al., 2020; Maxwell et al.,
2021a, b). Methods for modeling of coal analyses
such as proximate and ultimate analysis, which
account specifically for compositional data, are
also available (Jelsema & Paul, 2013; Olea &
Luppens, 2015; Karacan & Olea, 2018) and have
been shown to improve coal resource tonnage
calculations (Molayemat et al., 2018). Of all these
coal quality spatial model methods, the most
popular method reported in resource estimation on
the Australian Stock Exchange is IDW (Maxwell,
2020). However, IDW has numerous drawbacks
compared to most alternative methods including
that it does not provide a measure of uncertainty,
it cannot incorporate auxiliary data to improve
prediction accuracy, and it is sensitive to clustered
data (Emery et al., 2004; Scott et al., 2005; Bivand
et al., 2008; Olea, 2013). Moreover, in coal de-
posits, which are impacted by intrusion, IDW has
shown to produce low accuracy relative density
predictions compared to alternate methods be-
cause of highly variable and clustered data derived
from these deposits (Maxwell et al., 2019, 2021b).
Therefore, especially in deposits that are impacted
by intrusion, varying spatial model methods for
predicting in-situ density have the potential to
markedly affect tonnage estimates.
In this study, the primary focus was not to
determine or compare the accuracy of spatial model
Maxwell et al.
methods for predicting resource tonnage but to
determine if varying methods materially affect the
tonnage estimate. In addition, although spatial
methods for modeling coal surfaces (and associated
thicknesses) play an important role in determining
overall tonnage, the focus of this study was on
determining the impact of differing model methods
of in-situ density. The primary reason for focusing
on spatial modeling of in-situ density over surface
modeling is due to the lack of accessibility to com-
pare proprietary structural surface methods between
commercial geological software packages. This
study, therefore, assumed a fixed and constant coal
surface (thickness) model for comparing coal in-situ
density spatial models.
To determine the impact of spatial modeling of
in-situ density on estimating resource tonnages, four
methods were compared. These methods include
IDW, ordinary kriging (OK), a machine learning
method called geographical quantile regression for-
est (GQRF) (Maxwell et al., 2021a, b), and a hybrid
geostatistical and machine learning method called
random forest regression kriging (RFK). The data
used were sourced from an active mine site in the
Bowen Basin, Queensland, Australia, which has
areas impacted by intrusion. IDW was chosen as it is
the method currently used by resource geologists at
the mine site and because it remains the most pop-
ular method for modeling coal density in Australian
resource estimation (Maxwell, 2020). OK, which is a
geostatistical method that cannot incorporate auxil-
iary data, was used for direct comparison with IDW,
which is also a method that cannot use auxiliary
data. OK was used instead of sequential Gaussian
simulation because OK is a more simplistic method,
and the average result of simulations produced from
sequential Gaussian simulation generally have mean
and variance equal to OK (Bivand et al., 2008). RKF
was chosen over other geostatistical methods that
can incorporate auxiliary data (such as universal
kriging, kriging with external drift, or co-kriging) for
its ability to use nonlinear regression. The ability to
use nonlinear regression is important because linear
methods have proven to perform poorly in the pre-
diction of relative density when using the available
auxiliary data at the mine site used in this study
(Maxwell et al., 2019). GQRF was used over other
machine learning methods because it produces rel-
ative density predictions that are more accurate than
IDW, and similar or more accurate relative density
predictions than RFK at the mine site (Maxwell
et al., 2021a). Tonnages were calculated across three
Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods on Resource Tonnages
separate geological domains that have varying drill
density and intrusion impact. Resource tonnages
were also calculated across the forward 5-year open
cut mine plan to determine the variability of tonnage
estimates at local scale. The mean absolute error,
mean absolute percentage error, and the variance
explained by predictive models based on cross-vali-
dation (Li, 2017) for each method were calculated to
demonstrate varying accuracy between methods.
Finally, material impacts between model methods
were determined based on the error of differing
spatial model methods and the total variance be-
tween methods.
CASE SITE
Geology
The study mine site is located in the eastern
Bowen Basin, Queensland, Australia (Fig. 1). The
Permo–Triassic Bowen Basin is one of the major
economic coal-bearing basins in the world and has a
complex tectonic and structural history (Green
et al., 1997; Sliwa et al., 2017; Salmachi et al., 2021).
Locally, the mine site is located within a syncline,
and primary structural features include N–NW
trending normal and thrust faults (Fig. 2) (Sliwa
et al., 2017). The target coal seam at the mine site
was the Permian age Leichhardt coal seam that
comprises numerous sub-plies, differentiated by
their variable thicknesses and extent (Fig. 3). Three
geological domains (CP1, CP2, and EP) were iden-
tified by resource geologists at the mine site, which is
analogous to existing open-cut pits (Figs. 2 and 3).
Each geological domain area was constrained by
existing coal crop lines and mining leases. Domain
EP was defined by the presence of Cretaceous age
lamprophyre and dolerite intrusion (herein referred
simply to as intrusion) (Ritchie, 2010). Coal affected
by these intrusions has, compared to unaffected coal,
marked increase in density, marked decrease in vo-
latile matter, and slight increase in ash (Maxwell
et al., 2019). Domain CP1, the largest area, was
defined by the splitting of coal plies resulting in re-
duced thickness of the mineable coal seam (Table 1).
The 5-year forward mine plan crossed all geological
domains; however, most of the area in this mine plan
was contained within CP2, which is mostly unaf-
fected by intrusion (Table 1). Additional details on
501
the regional and local geology of the mine site can
be found in Ritchie (2010) and Maxwell et al. (2019).
Data
Data provided by the mine site comprised 246
core holes and 878 chip holes (Table 2). At the mine
site, a core hole is defined as a borehole that has
extracted a length of core across the target seam for
the purposes of coal quality analyses. A chip hole is
a borehole that has returned chip cuttings (not core)
for the purposes of determining coal thickness and
lithotypes. For all core holes, laboratory analysis of
relative density (AS1038.21.1.12002) (Standards
Australia International, 2002) and coal proximate
analysis (AS 1038 Part 3) (Standards Australia
International, 2000) were completed for each coal
ply. All analyses were conducted by laboratories
accredited by the National Association of Testing
Authorities Australia (NATA). All core and chip
holes were logged geophysically by a single vendor
and have natural gamma, density (long, short, and
compensated), and caliper data.
The borehole spacing statistics of the core and
chip holes are outlined in Table 3. EP domain had
the lowest number of core holes; however, it has an
average core and chip hole spacing similar to CP2.
Data in CP1 domain had the largest average core
and chip hole spacing. All domains had some very
close spaced (< 10 m) core and chip holes, attrib-
uted to occasional twinning of core holes to provide
additional sample mass for analysis, and occasional
re-drilling of chip holes in cases where not all plies
were intersected.
For each core hole, relative density sample re-
sults were averaged across each ply interval. Rela-
tive density for each ply was then converted to in-
situ density using Eq. 1. For all plies in both core
and chip holes, the distance from the nearest intru-
sion interval was calculated using the method de-
scribed by Maxwell et al. (2019). For all core and
chip holes, geophysical log data (short spaced, long
spaced and compensated density, and gamma-ray)
were averaged across each ply. Unreliable geo-
physical data were identified and removed using
upper and lower data limits, as explained by Max-
well et al. (2019). In total, 791 samples across all
plies and core holes were available for spatial
modeling.
502 Maxwell et al.

Figure 1. Approximate location of the mine site study area, relative to the border of the Bowen Basin
(after Sliwa et al. (2017)).
Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods on Resource Tonnages 503

Figure 2. Spatial distribution of borehole data showing outline of each geological domain (CP1, CP2, and
EP) and the extent of the forward 5-year mine plan. Local geology and structure from Sliwa et al. (2017).
Cross-section line A–AÕ is plotted to give context to Figure 3.

Calculation of In-Situ Density Descriptive Statistics

Calculation of coal resource tonnage requires
knowledge of in-situ density (reported in g/cm3)
(Guidelines Review Committee, 2014). Laboratory
testing of relative density does not give an exact
measure of in-situ density because the pore space of
coal changes due to the sample preparation process
(Zhou & Esterle, 2008). However, when in-situ
moisture is known, calculation of in-situ density can
be derived from relative density using the method
outlined by Preston and Sanders (1993), thus:
RDad  ð100  Mad Þ
RDis ¼
100 þ RDad  ðMis  Mad Þ  Mis
where RDad is relative density (air-dry basis), Mad is
moisture (air-dry basis) and Mis is in-situ moisture.
In this study, a default in-situ moisture value of
4.5% was used. This default value was provided by
the mine site and was based on an internal report
that evaluated various methods for predicting in-situ
moisture according to Fletcher and Sanders (2003)
and Meyers and Clarkson (2004). It should be noted
that any error associated with this conversion was
not addressed in this study, and only error associated
with the spatial model methods was evaluated.
Descriptive statistics for calculated in-situ den-
sity across each geological domain are provided in
Table 4 and Figure 4. These statistics show that EP
domain had the highest variability and largest range
of in-situ density values. In addition, data in EP
follow a broad uniform distribution that reflects the
impact of intrusion in this domain. Data in CP1
follow a normal distribution, had the tightest range
and lowest variability of the domains. The CP2 do-
main had the largest number of samples and the data
were moderately right-skewed. In CP2 domain, skew
ð1Þ values may be due to impact from intrusion (which
increases in-situ density) near the boundary of
intrusion (Fig. 2). Likewise, a high (> 1.8 g/cm3) in-
situ density outlier in CP1 domain (Fig. 4) revealed
that this sample was impacted by intrusion, indicat-
ing that lamprophyre and dolerite intrusion was not
fully constrained within the EP domain.
Auxiliary Data
Available auxiliary data at the case site com-
prised of geophysical log data and calculated dis-
504 Maxwell et al.

Figure 3. Stratigraphic cross-section through A–AÕ (Fig. 2) showing the approximate thickness and extent
of individual plies at the mine site. CP1 domain is characterized by the thinning and splitting of LCU1 and
LCU2 while EP domain is characterized by the presence of intrusion. Unfilled sections represent
overburden. Section is not to scale.

Table 1. Domain total area, 5-year area, and average total seam tance to intrusion, available at both core and chip
thickness (m) hole locations. Pearson correlation (which evaluates
Domain Area (m3) 5 year Area (m3) Seam Thickness (m)
the linear relationship between two continuous
variables) between in-situ density and auxiliary
CP1 9,575,174 163,015 6.01 variables is presented in Figure 5. The figure shows
CP2 7,665,834 1,044,060 8.67
that DENL and CODE had high (0.83) positive
EP 4,178,805 176,312 9.64
linear correlation with in-situ density, and that in-
situ density had a weakly negative linear correlation
with GRDE and distance to intrusion. However, at
the study mine site, nonlinear (sigmoid) association
between relative density and distance to intrusion
(Fig. 6) was recognized by Maxwell et al. (2019). In
Table 2. Number of observational points (core holes with lab
analyzed relative density) and number of auxiliary data points addition, Maxwell et al. (2019) also showed that
(chip holes with geophysics) in each geological domain GRDE and distance to intrusion were important
parameters in the prediction of relative density when
Domain No. Core holes No. Chip holes
using nonlinear algorithms. Likewise, despite
CP1 61 191 GRDE having weak linear relationship with in-situ
CP2 139 446 density, Maxwell et al. (2019) showed that GRDE
EP 46 241
was an important parameter for predicting coal im-
Total 246 878
pacted by intrusion in nonlinear algorithms due to
Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods on Resource Tonnages 505

Table 3. Borehole spacing statistics for each geological domain

Core Chip

Domain Min (m) Max (m) Mean (m) Min (m) Max (m) Mean (m)

CP1 8 559 176 2 434 106

CP2 4 705 112 2 509 61
EP 2 1001 113 2 535 66

Table 4. In-situ density (g/cm3) statistics for each geological domain

Domain N Min Max Mean Std. Dev Var Range Skewness Kurtosis

CP1 179 1.28 1.92 1.43 0.06 0.00 1.28 3.65 30.36
CP2 511 1.30 1.89 1.44 0.10 0.01 1.30 1.96 3.50
EP 101 1.34 2.00 1.64 0.21 0.04 1.34 0.13  1.57

Figure 4. Distribution of in-situ density values for each geological domain.

its association with lithotypes. This prior study, averaging the values of nearby observations,
which identified these nonlinear relationships among weighted by an inverse function of their distance
relative density, distance to intrusion, DENL, (Babak 2009). IDW shares the same generic equa-
CODE, and GRDE, was an important consideration tion as kriging, thus:
in choosing RFK over alternative available geosta- X
n
tistical methods. ^ ð x0 Þ ¼
Z ki Zðxi Þ ð2Þ
i¼1

SPATIAL MODEL METHODS where x0 is a spatial point location that needs to be

estimated, x1 is an observed value at a spatial loca-
Inverse Distance Weighting tion and ki is a weighting value. For IDW, ki can be
calculated as:
IDW is a deterministic method whereby un- 1=dp
known values at spatial locations are estimated by ki ¼ Pn i p ð3Þ
i¼1 1=di
506 Maxwell et al.

Figure 5. Pearson correlation among in-situ density, geophysical

log parameters, and distance to intrusion, where DENB is short
spaced density (g/cm3), DENL is long spaced density (g/cm3),
CODE compensated density (g/cm3), GRDE is gamma-ray (API)
and Dint is distance to nearest intrusion in meters.

Figure 6. Relationship between relative density (ad) and distance to

lamprophyre and dolerite intrusion (after Maxwell et al. (2019)).

where di is the distance between the spatial point to
be estimated and an observed point, and p is a power
parameter. The power parameter controls the
weighting of nearest observations such that as p in-
creases near observations have more influence on
the estimate.
The primary advantages of IDW are that it is
well known, fast, widely available in software pack-
ages, and has minimal input parameters (Li & Heap,
2008; Babak et al. 2009). These are primary reasons
for its popularity in predicting coal quality variables
(Maxwell, 2020). The primary disadvantages of IDW
are that it does not estimate error, it is sensitive to
clustered data, it cannot incorporate auxiliary
information to improve estimates and it does not
consider the geometry between informing samples
Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods on Resource Tonnages
(Bivand et al., 2008; Srivastava, 2013; Li & Heap,
2014).
Ordinary Kriging
OK is a geostatistical method whereby the
weighting value (ki) is not only based on distances
but also on the spatial arrangement of observations
(Isaaks & Srivastava, 1989). This feature is primarily
what sets geostatistical methods apart from IDW.
OK has been described as a Ôsmarter version of
IDWÕ (Srivastava, 2013) and it is a well-known
technique that is fully described in numerous pub-
lications and geostatistical texts (Isaaks & Srivas-
tava, 1989; Goovaerts 1997; Armstrong, 1998;
Bohling, 2005). To implement OK, a number of
steps are taken. First, a variogram is constructed by
plotting the variance between pairs of points that lie
at increasing distances apart. Second, the model of
best fit through the pairs of points is obtained and a
covariance matrix with an unbiased condition is
derived. Next, Ôkriging weightsÕ, which adhere to sum
condition equal to one, are derived from the
covariance matrix for locations that need to be
estimated. Finally, predictions are made using Eq. 2
where ki represents the kriging weights (Li & Heap,
2008).
The primary advantages of OK are that it can
quantify the estimation variance (kriging variance),
it is a well-known and simplistic geostatistical tech-
nique, it is widely available in software packages,
and it accounts for clustered data (Bivand et al.,
2008; Li & Heap, 2014). The disadvantages of OK
are that variograms must be constructed and inter-
preted, data that are skewed may need to be trans-
formed to a normal distribution to produce reliable
estimates of error, it cannot incorporate auxiliary
information to improve estimates, it may produce
smoothed results, and that it relies on the assump-
tion of stationarity and isotropy (Hengl et al., 2007;
Bivand et al., 2008; Li & Heap, 2014).
Random Forest Regression Kriging
Regression kriging (RK) is a hybrid geostatis-
tical method that combines a regression model with
OK (Hengl et al., 2007). RK has been used exten-
sively in the environmental sciences and it has been
described as one of the most popular, robust, and
practical hybrid methods for spatial modeling (Li &
507
Heap, 2014; Keskin & Grunwald, 2018). A primary
advantage of the method compared to universal
kriging and kriging with external drift is its ability to
use nonlinear algorithms for the regression compo-
nent of the method, which has shown to improve
prediction accuracy (Hengl et al., 2007; Li et al.,
2011).
In this study, random forest (Breiman, 2001)
was used as the regression model because it has
proven to be reliable in the prediction of coal ash
and relative density values using geophysical auxil-
iary data in the study area (Maxwell et al., 2019).
Further, it has shown to have superior accuracy
compared to IDW and OK in predicting coal prox-
imate analysis and relative density in intruded coal
deposits (Maxwell et al., 2021b).
The RK method used in this study (i.e., RFK)
follows the method outlined by Maxwell et al.
(2021a), which was derived from (Odeh et al., 1995).
The main steps of the method are:
1. Select and prepare predictor variables (aux-
iliary data).
2. Use random forest to predict the target
variable from auxiliary information overall
prediction locations.
3. Derive the residuals values (i.e., observed –
predicted) at the target observation loca-
tions.
4. Fit a variogram to the residuals.
5. Use OK to interpolate the residuals over all
prediction locations.
6. Add the random forest predictions (from
step 2) to the residuals (from step 4) to
produce final predictions.
The disadvantages of the method are that it
requires variograms to be constructed and inter-
preted, random forest parameters must be defined
and may need to be optimized, the random forest
component of the method does not account for
spatial continuity, it assumes auxiliary data are
known at all locations, and it is not available in most
commercial geological modeling software packages
(Li et al., 2011; Keskin & Grunwald, 2018; Maxwell
et al., 2021a).
Geographic Quantile Regression Forest
Geographic regression forest is a machine
learning method that builds on the random forest
508
algorithm by accounting for the spatial arrangement
of data. The method was first introduced by Geor-
ganos et al. (2019) and later modified by Maxwell
et al. (2021a, b) to incorporate the use of quantile
regression forest in place of random forest. Maxwell
et al. (2021a) termed this alternative method geo-
graphical quantile regression forest (GQRF). The
primary advantage of GQRF over geographic
regression forest as implemented by Georganos
et al. (2019) is its ability to produce estimates of
uncertainty, which are useful for resource classifi-
cation (Maxwell et al., 2021b). Further, Maxwell
et al. (2021a, b) showed that this method was more
accurate for predicting coal relative density values
than IDW, OK, and RFK. The method is fully out-
lined in Maxwell et al. (2021a) and comprises the
following steps:
1. Calculate the distance between Z* (x0) and
Z* (xi), i = 1.., k (number of observed data).
2. Scale the distances calculated in the previous
step in the [0, 1] range. These will be used as
weighting values in the following step.
3. Train a random forest algorithm using the
points from Step 1 and use the weights from
Step 2 as weighting values in the random
forest algorithm.
4. Use the trained random forest to predict the
value at Z* (x0).
5. Repeat this process for all locations.
The disadvantages of the method are that the
random forest parameters must be defined and
optimized, it generally requires larger volumes of
data, it is more complex and less intuitive than IDW
and OK, and it is not implemented in commercially
available geological software packages (Maxwell
et al., 2021a).
SPATIAL MODELING AND EVALUATION
Data preparation and spatial modeling were
conducted in the R programming language (R Core
Team, 2017). Estimates for IDW and OK relied on
the R library gstat (Gräler et al., 2016), estimates for
the regression kriging component of RFK relied on
the library ranger (Wright & Ziegler, 2017), and the
library gqrf (Maxwell et al., 2021a) was used for
creating estimates for GQRF. The calculation of
evaluation metrics and the generation of fig-
Maxwell et al.
ures were also conducted in R using a variety of R
libraries.
The grid spacing for all methods was
100 m 9 100 m, covering an area across all geolog-
ical domains. This spacing was chosen to represent
the approximate average spacing of all drill holes.
For RFK and GQRF, the auxiliary data included
geophysical density (short spaced, long spaced, and
compensated), geophysical gamma-ray, and distance
to intrusion. As previously stated, these auxiliary
variables were chosen because random forest mod-
eling with these variables has shown to be of
importance in the prediction of relative density at
the study mine site (Maxwell et al., 2019, 2021a). For
OK, in-situ density directional variograms at 0, 45,
90 and 125 for each ply were automatically fit using
the procedure outlined by Gräler et al. (2016). These
variograms were subsequently checked manually
and adjusted where necessary. For RFK, directional
variograms of the residuals for each ply were also
initially automatically fit using the procedure out-
lined in Gräler et al. (2016) and subsequently ad-
justed where necessary. The final variogram
parameters and variogram model used to fit the
variogram for OK and RFK residuals are presented
in Appendix A (Tables 12 and 13).
The settings for each spatial model method are
presented in Table 5 and were the same for each ply
and domain. Settings for IDW were chosen based on
settings used at the mine site, which were optimized
based on grid search using leave-one-out cross-vali-
dation. For the random forest component of RFK
and for GQRF, the settings from Maxwell et al.
(2021a) were used as these were proven to be reli-
able for predicting relative density the study mine
site. The maximum number of neighbors for RFK
and OK were taken from the IDW settings. For
GQRF, the maximum number of neighbors was
chosen by trial-and-error. After ply level models
were generated for each method, results were weight
averaged by thickness to represent the full mining
seam section.
The performance of each model method was
evaluated using leave-one-out cross-validation
(Efron, 1982) to determine mean absolute error
(MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE),
and the variance explained by predictive models
based on cross-validation (VEcv) (Li, 2017). An
ideal model will have an MAE and MAPE of zero
and a VEcv of 100%. The VEcv was used to com-
pare the accuracy of models because it is unit, scale,
Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods on Resource Tonnages 509

Table 5. Settings for each spatial interpolation method

Interpolation Method Hyperparameter Setting

GQRF Maximum neighbors 50

Number. of trees 500
pffiffiffiffiffi
No. of variables (X) randomly sampled X
IDW Maximum neighbors 12
Power 2
OK Maximum neighbors 12
Variogram See Table 12
RFK Maximum neighbors 12
Variogram See Table 13
Number of trees 500
pffiffiffiffiffi
No. of variables (X) randomly sampled X

Table 6. Interpretation of model predictive performance based Table 7. In-situ density evaluation metrics for each spatial model
on VEcv result (after Li (2017)) for each geological domain

VEcv Interpretation Domain Model MAE (g/cm3) MAPE (g/cm3) % VEcv %

£ 10 Very poor CP1 GQRF 0.034 2.38 21.47

> 10 £ 30 Poor IDW 0.035 2.45  13.59
> 30 £ 50 Average OK 0.038 2.66  34.23
> 50 £ 80 Above average RFK 0.037 2.59  21.11
> 80 Excellent CP2 GQRF 0.044 3.06 53.98
IDW 0.056 3.9 23.99
OK 0.056 3.9 24.35
RFK 0.042 2.92 58.14
EP GQRF 0.071 4.33 77.41
IDW 0.131 7.99 30.93
data mean, and variance independent. The equation OK 0.144 8.78 19.03
for VEcv is expressed as: RFK 0.08 4.88 77.56
Pn !
2
ð y i  b
y i Þ
VEcv ¼ 1  P1n 2
100ð%Þ ð4Þ
1 ð yi  yÞ
be noted that contour plots of resulting tonnages
where n is the number of observations in a valida- may be useful for mine planning and scheduling;
tion data set, yi is the observed value, ybi is the pre- however, these were not produced in this study be-
dicted value and y is the mean of the observed cause thickness was fixed. Because of that, tonnage
values. By using VEcv, the predictive performance contour plots would result in the exact same spatial
of the models can be interpreted using Table 6 (Li, pattern as the in-situ density plots and, therefore,
2017). Heat map plots (at 0.1 g/cm3 contours) for would not add additional interpretive value to the
each model were then generated for the weight study.
average of all plies to facilitate visual interpretation
of results.
Finally, average in-situ density results and cal- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
culated tonnages were derived for each model and
geological domain, and for the associated areas Spatial Model Evaluation Metrics
within the forward 5-year mine plan. The tonnages
were calculated as: The in-situ density evaluation metrics for each
model method are provided in Table 7. It should be
t ¼ a  tk  Dis ð5Þ noted that these evaluation metric results can also
be used for associated calculated tonnage because
where a is area, tk is average seam thickness and Dis thickness is assumed constant for each geological
is average of the predicted in-situ density. It should domain.
510
The lowest MAE and MAPE for all models are
in CP1 domain. However, in this domain all models
except GQRF have negative VEcv, indicating that
these models performed worse than that of a base-
line (mean) model. Poor VEcv results indicate that
the low MAE and MAPE were due to the low
variation of in-situ density values (Table 4) but not
to the performance of the models. Overall poor
performance of models in this domain was attributed
to the average broader spaced drilling (Table 3) and
sparse spatial arrangement of data compared to CP2
and EP domains.
In CP2 domain, IDW and OK had identical
MAE and MAPE and both performed poorly
according to VEcv ( £ 30 VEcv). The best per-
forming model in this domain was RFK, which had
the lowest MAE, MAPE, and the highest VEcv.
GQRF performs similarly to RFK with above-av-
erage (> 50) VEcv and much lower MAE and
MAPE than IDW and OK. The markedly better
performance of RFK and GQRF was attributed to
the ability of these models to incorporate correlated
auxiliary variables at chip hole locations.
In EP domain, the domain most impacted by
intrusion, GQRF and RFK markedly outperformed
IDW and OK and had well above average VEcv.
However, MAE and MAPE values for all models
were higher compared to CP1 and CP2 domains.
The high MAE and MAPE values were, therefore,
associated with the much higher natural variance of
in-situ density values in this domain and not neces-
sarily the accuracy of models. The well above aver-
age performance of GQRF and RFK in EP domain
was again attributed to the ability of these models to
incorporate auxiliary variables and strong correla-
tion between auxiliary data and in-situ density.
Heat Map Plots
Figure 7 compares the heat map plot of each in-
situ density spatial model method. The most
notable differences between the spatial models were
in the CP2 and EP domains. In CP2 domain, IDW
and OK plots showed areas of high (> 1.6 g/cm3) in-
situ density compared to GQRF and RFK, in which
areas of > 1.6 in-situ density were almost entirely
constrained within EP domain. This is an important
observation because it indicates that GQRF and
RFK honored the relationship between the spatial
extent of intrusion and its impact on coal density
(increase in coal in-situ density).
Maxwell et al.
In CP1 domain, GQRF and RFK in-situ density
values showed little ( £ 0.5 g/cm3) variation com-
pared to IDW and OK, which showed variation in
the far east and in the far northwest of this domain.
For IDW and OK, this variation was attributed to
extrapolation due to limited core hole data available
in this area. In EP domain, all models showed high
variation of in-situ density values. This variation was
attributed to the variable morphology of intrusion
and its associated impact on in-situ density. How-
ever, as noted previously, high is-situ density pre-
dictions of GQRF and RFK showed closer
adherence to honoring the domain boundary of EP
compared to IDW and OK. This closer adherence
was attributed to the availability of auxiliary data at
closely spaced chip hole locations.
Tonnage Calculation Results
Tonnage calculation and associated average in-
situ density for each geological domain and model
are presented in Table 8. In all domains, GQRF and
RFK predicted lower tonnage and in-situ density
than IDW and OK. Across all domains, tonnage
estimates for GQRF and RFK were similar (within 1
Mt). Likewise, tonnage estimates for IDW and OK
were closely aligned (within 1 Mt). In CP1 domain,
GQRF predicted the lowest tonnage compared to
IDW, which predicted the highest. In this domain,
according to VEcv (Table 7), GQRF performed the
best amongst all models, leading to the inference
that other models over-estimated tonnages in this
domain. Likewise, since GQRF and RFK markedly
outperformed IDW and OK in CP2 and EP do-
mains, it was inferred that IDW and OK over-esti-
mated tonnages and in-situ density in these domains.
The largest tonnage relative range percentage
between models was in EP domain (Table 9). This
large range variance reflected the large performance
difference between models. The smallest variance
between model tonnage estimates was in CP1 do-
main (Table 9), as reflected by the low MAE and
MAPE and similar VEcv values of models in this
domain (Table 8).
An important observation from these results is
that MAPE associated with tonnage predictions for
all models and geological domains (Table 8) was
higher than the relative range of tonnages percent-
ages between models (Table 9). From this observa-
tion, it can be concluded that varying models did not
Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods on Resource Tonnages 511

Figure 7. Heat maps of in-situ density predictions for the aggregate of all plys colored at 0.01 g/cm3 increments. Borehole
locations are removed to facilitate interpretation. Borehole locations can be referenced in Figure 2.

markedly impact the tonnage estimates for each
geological domain at large (whole of deposit) scale.
For the 5-year forward mine plan area, tonnage
estimate results for each model (Table 10) mostly
mirrored those outlined in Table 9. That is, within
the 5-year forward mine plan for each geological
domain, tonnage estimates for GQRF and RFK
were lower than for IDW and OK. Results of RFK
and GQRF were similar, as were results of IDW and
OK; however, the relative range percentage among
the models was much higher in the 5-year mine plan
(Table 11) compared to those results presented in
Table 9. In fact, in CP2 domain, the MAPE for all
models (Table 8) was lower than the tonnage rela-
tive range percentage among models (Table 11). In
addition, in EP domain, the MAPE for GQRF was
lower than the tonnage relative range percentage. In
contrast to the previous conclusion, this observation
indicates that for the 5-year plan area, the differing
in-situ density spatial model methods did have a
512 Maxwell et al.

Table 8. Average in-situ density and tonnage results (presented in material impact on tonnage estimates. This impact
million tonnes (Mt)) for each model and geological domain was due to the much smaller size of area and re-
Domain Model In-situ Density (g/cm3) Tonnage (Mt) flected the local in-situ density variation in models as
observed in the contour plots (Fig. 5).
CP1 GQRF 1.43 81.95
IDW 1.44 82.95
OK 1.45 83.12
RFK 1.43 82.45 CONCLUSIONS
CP2 GQRF 1.44 95.8
IDW 1.48 98.46 In this study, the impact of differing in-situ
OK 1.48 98.47
density spatial model methods on the calculation of
RFK 1.44 95.93
EP GQRF 1.58 63.72 coal resource tonnages was compared. To evaluate
IDW 1.61 65.09 these model impacts, the study used data from an
OK 1.6 64.48 active coal mine in the Bowen Basin that had areas
RFK 1.57 63.13 of coal impacted by intrusion. The study compared
the impact on tonnage estimates under differing
circumstances including in areas of high intrusion
intensity (EP Domain), low in-situ density variabil-
Table 9. Summary tonnage statistics for all spatial models for ity (CP2 Domain), and across a range of areal ex-
each domain. Results are presented in million tonnes (Mt) tents including extents covering the entire coal mine
lease area and covering the forward 5-year mine
Domain Mean Std. Dev. Var. Range Relative
(Mt) (Mt) (Mt) (Mt) range % plan.
Four in-situ density spatial model methods were
CP1 82.62 0.5 0.3 1.165 1.41 compared including inverse distance weighting
CP2 97.16 1.5 2.3 2.674 2.75
EP 64.1 0.9 0.7 1.959 3.06
(IDW), ordinary kriging (OK), geographical quan-
tile regression forest (GQRF), and random forest
regression kriging (RFK). The key findings of the
Table 10. Average in-situ density and tonnage results (presented study were:
in million tonnes (Mt)) for each model and geological domain
within the 5 year mine plan 1. In areas impacted by intrusion and over local
Domain Area Model In-situ Density (g/cm3) Mt (5-year mine plan) areas, tonnage estimates
based on differing spatial models were
CP1: 5 Year plan GQRF 1.42 1.39
materially different.
IDW 1.45 1.42
OK 1.45 1.42 2. Over areas of low in-situ density variability,
RFK 1.43 1.4 and over large areal extent, tonnage calcu-
CP2: 5 year plan GQRF 1.45 13.12 lations between spatial models were not
IDW 1.51 13.65 materially different.
OK 1.51 13.71
3. GQRF and RFK were the most accurate
RFK 1.45 13.17
EP: 5 year plan GQRF 1.54 2.63 methods (according to VEcv and MAPE) for
IDW 1.61 2.74 spatially modeling in-situ density due to their
OK 1.6 2.73 ability to incorporate auxiliary data, espe-
RFK 1.56 2.65 cially in areas impacted by intrusion.

Table 11. Summary tonnage statistics for all spatial models for each domain within the 5-year mine plan. Results are presented in million
tonnes

Domain Area Mean Std. Dev Var Range Relative range %

CP1: 5 year plan 1.41 0.01 0.00 0.03 1.91

CP2: 5 year plan 13.41 0.31 0.10 0.59 4.40
EP: 5 year plan 2.69 0.06 0.00 0.12 4.38
Impact of In-Situ Density Spatial Model Methods on Resource Tonnages 513

4. IDW was generally the least accurate meth- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

od for spatially modeling in-situ density
across all circumstances.
5. IDW and OK spatial models led to over-es-
timates of areas of intrusion impact.
6. The variance between in-situ density spatial
models ranged between 1.41% and 4.40%
depending on the size of the area compared
and the intensity of the impact of intrusion
on in-situ density.
To summarize, in areas of high in-situ density
variability and over local (mine plan) scale, the
spatial model method has the potential to materially
impact tonnage estimates. This impact could affect
short-term mine plans and financial forecasts;
therefore, in these circumstances, spatial model
methods should be carefully chosen and compared.
It is also recommended that, in coal deposits that are
impacted by intrusion, methods that can incorporate
auxiliary data (for example geophysical log data)
should be considered instead of traditional deter-
ministic methods such as IDW. Finally, while not
available in this study, reconciliation of models
against mine production data would also be recom-
mended to validate the most appropriate model for
the deposit.
The authors would like to thank Peabody En-
ergy for providing data for this study and for
granting permission to publish the results of this
study. The authors would like to thank Vale UQ
Coal Geoscience program for providing the infras-
tructure for this study.
AVAILABILITY OF DATA AND MATERIAL
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed
during the current study are available from the
corresponding author on reasonable request.
CODE AVAILABILITY
Code for generating geographic quantile
regression forest predictions outlined in this study is
available in the associated GitHub repository (http
s://github.com/Gitmaxwell/gqrf).
APPENDIX A

See Tables 12 and 13.

Table 12. Final variogram fit setting for in-situ density used for OK

Ply Model type Nugget (g/cm3) Sill (g/cm3) Range (m) Direction ()

LCTU (LCU1 & LCU2) Matérn 0.0010 0.009 750 0

LCL1 Matérn 0.0000 0.018 1200 90
LCL2 Matérn 0.0000 0.007 1000 90
LCL3 Matérn 0.0030 0.011 600 90
LCL4 Matérn 0.0050 0.025 600 90

Table 13. Variogram fit settings used for in-situ density residuals for RFK

Ply Model type Nugget (g/cm3) Sill (g/cm3) Range (m) Direction ()

LCTU (LCU1 & LCU2) Matérn 0.0001 0.0011 750 90

LCL1 Matérn 0.0001 0.0007 750 90
LCL2 Matérn 0.0001 0.0009 750 90
LCL3 Matérn 0.0002 0.0006 750 90
LCL4 Matérn 0.0015 0.0025 500 90
514
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