Joint simulation of stationary grade and non-stationary rock type for quantifying geological uncertainty in a copper deposit

The proposals concern both the inference of the model parameters and the construction of realizations conditioned to existing data. The main difficulty is the identification of the spatial correlation structure, for which a semi-automated algorithm is designed, based on a least squares fitting of the data-to-data indicator covariances and grade-indicator cross-covariances. The proposed models and algorithms are applied to jointly simulate the copper grade and the rock type in a Chilean porphyry copper deposit. The results show their ability to reproduce the gradual transitions of the grade when crossing a rock type boundary, as well as the spatial zonation of the rock type.