Factorial kriging with external drift; a case study on the Penedono region, Portugal

Abstract Factorial kriging has been used in geochemical exploration for the estimation and cartography of the spatial components of the variables, helping with the identification and interpretation of geochemical anomalies. Those spatial components appear by the decomposition of the variables in its several structural components, given by the variograms. In this paper a new form of factorial kriging is introduced, by using the geologic information as an external drift. This was achieved considering as an external variable (external drift) sample co-ordinates on the first axis resultant from a principal component analysis (PCA), interpreted as a lithological factor. With this type of geostatistical technique each point appears in the resultant maps as a combination of geochemical and geological information, attending the geographic localization of the samples. This technique was tested on a set of 2450 sediment samples collected on a 640 km2 area, between the Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro and the Beira Alta regions. From the 34 initial elements analyzed (10 major elements P2O5, SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, MgO, CaO, Na2O, K2O, TiO2 and MnO expressed in oxide percentage and 24 elements expressed in ppm As, Bi, Ag, Sb, W, B, Cu, Pb, Zn, Sn, Nb, Li, Be, Zr, Y, La, Ba, Cd, Mo, V, Cr, Co, Ni and Sr) only the results obtained for 2 of them are presented in this work. The first was Sn, which is associated with some mineralisation in this region and the other one was Zn, which shows similar behavior in the whole area, with the exception of a small region.