Plurigaussian Simulations in Geosciences

Application of plurigaussian simulation to delineate the layout of alteration domains in Sungun copper deposit

“…Plurigaussian simulation [2] is a geostatistical approach that aims at reproducing the layout of geological domains forming a partition of space. It relies on the following: • two or more Gaussian spatial random fields, generally assumed independent;…”

“…In practice, the spatial correlation structure of the underlying Gaussian random fields is inferred in order to fit the correlation structure of the domains (indicator variograms). The reader is referred to the specialized literature [2,7,12] for details on the inference and simulation of a plurigaussian model.…”

“…Geostatistical simulation overcomes these limita-tions, by constructing multiple numerical models (called realizations) that reproduce spatial variability and, therefore, provide realistic outcomes of the geological domain layout. To date, many simulation approaches have been proposed, such as sequential indicator [1,11], multiplepoint [20], truncated Gaussian [15] and plurigaussian [2] simulation. The benefits and limitations of these approaches have been discussed in the literature [5] and are out of the scope of this work.…”

Geological modeling of rock type domains in the Balya (Turkey) lead-zinc deposit using plurigaussian simulation

“…The rock types are obtained by applying thresholds to Gaussian simulated values. A comprehensive review is given in Armstrong et al [10]. Application of the method to copper deposits can be found in the relevant literature [1,12].…”

“…This is a mature algorithm, and is used for modeling petroleum reservoirs or sedimentary sequences of strata [8,9]. Plurigaussian simulations allow more complex transitions between rock types, based on a truncation rule for a multivariate Gaussian distribution [10]. Applications of plurigaussian simulations have found wide acceptance in the literature [11][12][13][14].…”