Geostatistical case studies of the advantages of lognormal-de Wijsian kriging with mean for a base metal mine and a gold mine

Parallel variogram analyses, block kriging, and follow-up studies were effected for the lead content of part of the Prieska copper-zinc ore body and for the gold content of the highly variable Breef in a section of the Loraine gold mine, based first on untransformed values and second on logarithmically transformed values using the lognormal-de Wijsian model. For both models the effect was also analyzed of using the population mean or ignoring it. Practical follow-up comparisons confirm theoretical considerations and show that on these mines conditional biases can be eliminated conveniently by kriging with mean; also that the lognormal-de Wijsian model with mean gives the best results.