A technique for estimating values at those locations which have not been sampled. This process is known as ‘kriging’.

The basic technique “ordinary kriging” uses a weighted average of neighbouring samples to estimate the ‘unknown’ value at a given location. Weights are optimized using the semi-variogram model, the location of the samples and all the relevant inter-relationships between known and unknown values. The technique also provides a “standard error” which may be used to quantify confidence levels.

In mining, geostatistics is extensively used in the field of mineral resource and reserve valuation – the estimation of grades and other parameters from a relatively small set of borehole or other samples.

Geostatistics is now widely used in many other fields. Obviously there are geological and geographical applications.

However, the techniques are also used in such diverse fields as hydrology, ground water and air pollution, soil science and agriculture, forestry, epidemiology, management of wildlife and weather prediction.