Geostatystyka dla niematematyków. Przewodnik praktyczny – część I

Geostatistical tools are useful and even necessary in many fields, not only in geology. The obstacle to their widespread use is the seemingly difficult mathematical foundations with which the teaching of the subject usually begins. Many years of experience and observations allow me to claim that even if geostatistical methods are used, they are often incomplete and imperfect. In a series of three articles, I would like to introduce potential non-mathematicians to the most important methods and tools from the arsenal of spatial statistics and how to use them properly. I will indicate the areas where they can be used, explain whether they can always be used, showwhat decisions should be made during calculations and how to interpret the obtained results. It will not be a compendium, but rather a pocket guide facilitating the reader's first contact with geostatistics. In the first article, in the introduction, I will explain where the title comes from; I will show what geostatistics can be useful for; what is interpolation, is it always possible, when does it make sense and what does its accuracy depend on? I will show how imperfect the research material available to a geologist is and why we should use sophisticated software to solve seemingly simpleproblems. Using a non-obvious example, I will try to explain the phenomenon of autocorrelation, which is important in geostatistics. I will also ask a few questions, the answers to which will be in the next article in this series.