A PRACTICAL REVIEW OF SOME BASIC CONCEPTS AND TECHNIQUES FOR MINING APPLICATIONS

摘要

The author's personal involvement with geostatistics in mining applications stretches over a period of nearly 60 years from the late 1940's. Geostatistics has made remarkable progress during this period and is now practised world wide with a range of techniques covered by an extensive library of publications in technical journals, proceedings of many international congresses and symposia, and in a variety of text books. However, as in all branches of science, the last word and development has not, and never will be reached and the philosophical view of Socrates expressed some two milleniums ago still applies today, i.e. "I know nothing, all I really know is that I am ignorant." There is, therefore, no end to the scope for further developments, new ideas and perspectives via continued research. The papers to be presented at this APCOM bear witness to this view. Apart from new ideas there is also a definite need for examining lesser known and practised routes which can provide new perspectives on existing problems and so make positive contributions. This paper follows the latter route via a perspective review, mostly of recent publications, and concerns some main geostatistical aspects, their uncertainties and interactions, and some practical conclusions for day-to-day applications.