The wealth of mineral resources that lies beneath the Earth’s surface drives techno‑logical advancements and underpins our economic prosperity. This comprehensive book presents the methods and processes of mineral resource estimation at each step along the mining value chain and provides a necessary framework for understanding mineral development and exploitation. The complexities associated with mineral resource estimation are addressed by explaining the importance of reliable methodologies and the consideration of uncertainty in decision‑making.

Geostatistics (also known as kriging) was developed for the mining industry during the 1960s and 1970s to estimate changes in ore grade. The principles of geostatistics are now applied to many applications that require statistically based interpolation techniques. Geostatistics provides a data value estimate for locations that cannot be sampled directly by examining data taken at locations that can be sampled.

Geostatistics aims at providing quantitative descriptions of natural variables distributed in space or in time and space. Examples of such variables are 

Ore grades in a mineral deposit 

Depth and thickness of a geological layer 

Porosity and permeability in a porous medium 

Density of trees of a certain species in a forest 

Soil properties in a region 

Rainfall over a catchment area 

Pressure, temperature, and wind velocity in the atmosphere
Concentrations of pollutants in a contaminated site

Welcome to physical geography and the fifth edition of  Geosystems! We begin this new century with a sense that the world community is responding to global concerns as to  the status and conditions of Earth's physical, biological, and  chemical systems. The globalization of the world economies seems paralleled by a global scientific inquiry into the state of the environment. Marking this awareness is the second Earth Summit held in 2002 in]oham1esburg, South Africa, with an agenda including climate change, freshwater, and the five Rio Conventions, among other topics. <...>