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Articles

1975: Vol. LII, No. 1

Kriging : A Method for Cartography of the Sea Floor

Submitted
August 7, 2015
Published
2015-07-07

Abstract

Geostatistics is a method of analysis and spatial data treatment developed at the Mathematical Morphology Centre, directed by Professor G. Matheron. It has been applied to fields as varied as mining, gravimetry, meteorology, biology and oceanography to solve problems such as ore deposit valuation, contouring, simulation, map numbering, etc. One of the most used techniques in geostatistics is Kriging, and in this paper it is presented as applied to the Iroise Sea bathymetry, from sounding records of the French Naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service. From the same data not just a single map but several different maps can be drawn according to the desired objective; for instance the navigator will pay particular attention to shoals and reefs, while oceanographers need maps showing only the main features of the relief. By taking relief structure into account Kriging gives a specific solution to each aim. The influence of data density on the quality of the map is also stressed; for comprehensive (sinall-scale) maps, the sounding record is much too rich, whereas detailed (large-scale) charts have relatively too few data.