Traditional and New Ways to Handle Uncertainty in Geology

The paper presents an overview of the main types of uncertainty in geology. The best guess and uncertainty oriented approaches are outlined. Traditional methods of uncertainty analysis—deterministic and probabilistic—are discussed with special references to their limitations in geology. New mathematical methods, developed during the last decades are suitable to handle uncertainty in geology in scalar, spatial, and spatial-temporal conditions, such as uncertainty intervals, fuzzy sets, probability bounds, neural networks, hybrid arithmetic and fuzzy geostatistics. Geological applicability of these methods is discussed. Uncertainty of risk analysis for geological purposes also is outlined.