Geostatistics for the mining industry (applications to porphyry copper deposits) / Геостатистика для горнодобывающей промышленности (применительно для медно-порфировых месторождений)

The organization of this book follows the typical mining sequence that starts with the exploration phase aimed at delineating the mineral deposit and detailing its geology.

Geological objects can be singular, like the inverted cone-shaped diatreme of the El Teniente copper mine; more generally, they can be domains with given lithological, mineralogical, structural or alteration properties, which will be designated throughout this book under the name of ‘facies’, commonly used in geosciences. Within each facies, the metal grades have their own distribution and variability. This peculiarity will lead directly to the prediction or simulation of the grades (quantitative variables) taking into account the statistical and spatial characteristics of each facies (categorical variable).

We emphasize these four terms, which will be found throughout this book: prediction, simulation, quantitative variable and categorical variable <...>