Spatial Modeling Principles in Earth Sciences / Edition 1

Data collection in the earth, sciences is often difficult and expensive. It requires special care to gather accurate information. Spatial simulation methodologies in the earth sciences are essential in order to understand the variability in features for example fracture frequencies, rock quality, and grain size distribution in rock and porous media. This book is a comprehensive presentation of spatial modeling techniques used in the earth sciences. It also presents original techniques developed by the author. This book outlines in a detailed yet accessible way the main spatial modeling techniques, in particular the Kriging methodology. It presents many unique physical approaches, field cases, and sample interpretations. Since Kriging's origin in the 1960s it has been developed into a number of new methods such as cumulative (CSV), point CSV (PCSV), and spatial dependence function, which have been applied in different aspects of the earth sciences. Each one of these techniques is explained in this hook, as well as how they are used to model earth science phenomena such as earthquakes, meteorology, and hydrology. In addition to Kriging methodology and its variants, several alternatives are presented and the necessary steps in their application are clearly explained. Simple spatial variation prediction methodologies are also revised with up-to-date literature, and the way in which they relate to more advanced spatial modeling methodologies are explained. The book is a valuable resources for students, researchers and professionals within a broad range of discipline including geology, geography, hydrology, meteorology, environment, image processing, spatial modeling and relatedtopics.