A fractal interpolatory approach to geochemical exploration data processing

摘要

Traditional interpolation procedures used for processing geochemical data treat the data as a continuous smooth surface. In this paper, we proposed a fractal spatial interpolatory procedure based on the concept of the fractional delta variance. The method is suitable for processing the geochemical data that are measured at irregularly spaced discrete points, without resort to gridding procedures. The value at each interpolatory point is a function of the fractal disturbance that is related to the fractal dimension determined from the original data set, thus enhancing reconstruction of the natural spatial distribution of element concentration. The proposed procedure has been applied to the copper geochemical data measured from irregularly-spaced floodplain sediment samples in China. We compared geochemical maps created using different interpolatory procedures, including the new fractal method, the Kriging, and the weighted average, against the actual spatial distribution of copper mineral deposits in China, and found that the new fractal method detected more of known Cu-deposits from the test area than the other two methods.