Geostatistical ore reserve estimation / Геостатистические методы при оценке запасов руд

This text intends to be a technical one. This means that techniques to solve identified problems will be presented. As the theory which serves as a basis for these techniques is very new, and relatively unfamiliar to the mineral industry, several chapters or sections will be devoted to it. These two ideas of a technique and a theory have been my guideline in preparing this course on the geostatistical estimation of mineral resources. The main target was to stay, as much as possible, close to the practical problems. This is the reason for the many examples which are intermeshed with the text; however, in many cases, staying t o o close t o a problem obscures the broader frame into which a question has to be asked before finding a correct answer. This is the reason for some theoretical digressions, which may seem to some as an attempt to try and make things look complicated. Certainly, in a particular mine, many problems can be solved without a total understanding of the complete theory. On the other hand, when one considers all the problems occurring in different mines, one cannot hope to solve them without having a good grasp, a synthetic view of the theory of regionalized variables as developed by G. Matheron in France, the most advanced developments of which have just been published in the Proceedings of a N.A.T.O. Advanced Study Institute (Guarascio, Huijbregts, David, 1976) <...>