Abstract
Geostatistical concepts are widely used in the mining industry by resource geologists. Processes such as variography and kriging are industry standard for resource estimation processes. However, these concepts that are common practice for resource geologists are rarely used by exploration geologists. Common exploration processes include geology mapping, soil sampling survey, drillhole planning, downhole sampling, and geology modelling. This presentation discusses current exploration practices around some of these processes, and how they can benefit from the extra insights that geostatistical analysis would provide. With the proper background knowledge, variography is a powerful tool for understanding variability of mineralization. Variograms can be plotted to help define the drillhole distance pattern and sampling length. Variograms and Kriging can be used to create geophysical models to guide prospecting studies, and also provide results when a geochemical surface needs to be interpolated from soil data.
A better understanding of geostatistics would benefit exploration geologists with some of their daily tasks, but also provide a deeper understanding of how their data will be used downstream, helping them to better prepare that data for future resource estimation processes. There is no substitute for good data. By thinking ahead to how collected drill data is used in resource modelling, the exploration geologist can collect data in certain ways to help avoid bias and reduce risk of inaccurate modelling, making downstream modelling processes quicker and easier for others.