Zipf's law: A viable geological paradigm?

Natural Resources Research

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 265-271

  Merriam, Daniel F ^a   Drew, Lawrence J ^b   Schuenemeyer, John H ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS   (United States)

^b U S GEOLOGICAL SURVEY   (United States)

^c Southwest Statistical Consulting   (United States)

Author keywords

Discrete data; Kansas; Mineral resource; Pareto's Law; Rank and size

Indexed keywords

EID: 33645983759     PISSN: 15207439     EISSN: 15738981     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11053-004-0134-5     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. Barker, R., 1994, Recent exploration in the Hauraki Goldfield, Coromandel Peninsula: New Zealand Mining, v. 13, p. 9- 15.
2. Bulkin, G. A., 1988, Simulated impossible quantitative appraisal in the prediction of resources with the help of Zipf's Law: Razvedka i Okhrana Nedr., v. 4, p. 15-18 (in Russian).
3. Dahlberg, E. C., 1980, Pros and cons of Zipf's Law as a resource appraisal tool (abst.), in Miall, A.D., ed., 1980, Facts and Principles of World Petroleum Occurrence: Canadian Soc. Petroleum Geologists Mem., v. 6, p. 987.
4. Dou, L., 1991, Limitations in the application of Pareto law to resource evaluation and its revision: Petrol. Expl. and Devel., v. 18, Suppl., p. 21-27 (in Chinese).
5. Drew, L. J., and Schuenemeyer, J. H., 1993,The evolution and use of discovery process models at theU.S. Geol. Survey: Am.Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., v. 77, no. 3, p. 467-478.
6. Folinsbee, R. E., 1977, World's view-From Alph to Zipf: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 88, no. 7, p. 897-907.
7. Guiter, H., and Arapov, M. V., eds., 1982, Studies on Zipf's Law: Studienverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, Bochum, 262 p.
8. Howarth, R. J., White, C. M., and Koch, G. S., Jr., 1980, On Zipf's law applied to resource prediction: Inst. Min. Metall. Trans., Sect. B, v. 89, p. B182-B190.
9. Huang, J.-F., and Xu, D.-Y., 1990, Zipf's law, Taiji distribution and application in geology: Proc. Intern. Workshop on Statistical Prediction of Mineral Resources, China Univ. Geosciences, preprint, 5 p.
10. Jinglin, Y., and Sheng, L., 1983, Tentative aplication (sic) of Zipfs law to prognosis of some mineral deposits in China: Geological Review, v. 29, no. 6, p. 574-575 (in Chinese with English abstract).
11. Mandelbrot, B. B., 1953, An informational theory of the statistical structure of languages in communication theory, in Jackson, W., ed., Application of Communication Theory: Butterworths, London, p. 486-502.
12. Merriam,D. F., 1956, History of earthquakes in Kansas: Seism. Soc. America Bull., v. 46, no. 2, p. 87-96.
13. Merriam,D. F., 1963, The geologic history of Kansas: Kansas Geol. Survey Bull., v. 162, 317 p.
14. Němec,V., 1970, the Law of Regular Structural Pattern: Its application with special regard to mathematical geology, in Merriam, D. F., ed., Geostatistics: A Colloquium: Plenum, New York, p. 63-78.
15. Paliwal, H. V., Bhatnagar, S. N., and Haldar, S. K., 1986, Lead-zinc resource prediction in India: An application of Zipf's Law: Math. Geology, v. 18, no. 6, p. 539-549.
16. Pareto,V, 1927, Manuel d'economie politique (2nd edn.): M. Giard, Paris, 695 p.
17. Rowlands, N. J., and Sampey, D., 1977, Zipf's Law-an aid to resource inventory prediction in partially explored areas: Math. Geology, v. 9, no. 4, p. 383-391.
18. Scarrott, G., 1974, Will Zipf join Gauss?: New Scientist, v. 62, no. 896, p. 402-404.
19. Schuenemeyer, J. H., and Drew, L. J., 1983,Aprocedure to estimate the parent population of the size of oil and gas fields as revealed by a study of economic truncation: Math. Geology, v. 15, no. 1, p. 145-161.
20. Simon,W. A., 1972, The size of things, in Tanur, J.M., ed., Statistics. AGuide to the Unknown: Holden-Day, San Francisco, p. 195- 202.
21. Sornette, D., Knopoff, L., Kagan, Y. Y., and Vanneste, C., 1996, Rank-ordering statistics of extreme events: Application to the distribution of large earthquakes: Jour. Geophys. Research, v. 101, no. B6, p. 13883-13894.
22. Tapp, B. A., and Koniuszko, V., 1978, Application of Zipf's law to mineral distribution patterns in the northern Australian orogenic provinces: 11th Commonwealth Mineral and Metallurgical Congress, IMM Paper 35, 8 p.
23. Yang, B., and Sun, Z., 1989, The application of Zipf's Law to oil and gas resource rediction (sic): Petrol. Expl. and Devel., v. 16, no. 2, p. 31-35 (in Chinese).
24. Yu, J., and Li, S., 1983, Application of Zipf's Law to the estimation of some mineral resources in China: Geol. Review, v. 29, no. 6, p. 573-574 (in Chinese).
25. Zemtsov, A. N., 1995, Rank statistics, Zipf Law and geo-sciences objects (abst.): Intern. Union Geodesy and Geophysics, Gen. Assem., v. 21,Week B, p. 409.
26. Zipf, G. K., 1949, Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort: An introduction to human ecology: Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 573 p.