Kriging—Blue or pink?

Philip and Watson have made many valid criticisms of the theory and application of geostatistics. Journel and Srivastava, in their turn, have defended the basis of geostatistics and highlighted a few of its unique advantages as an approach to analyzing spatial data without, however, answering most of the criticisms. The controversy remains unresolved; but a possibility of resolution does exist, however, given the answers to two particular questions: These questions are not of mere academic interest but have major economic implications. In the mining industry, for example, the best possible estimates of tonnage, grade, and error bounds are vital for economic decisions; so long as disagreement exists on validity of different estimation techniques, the choice among conflicting estimates will continue to be made on extraneous (nontechnical and perhaps irrational) criteria.