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Insights from our peer-reviewed journal | Compiled by Megan Skrip - 26 February 2026
Mining industry inertia: Why traditional estimation methods still dominate over modern research
A recent review of 175 publicly available technical reports published between 2020 and 2024 from Canada, Australia and the United States found ordinary kriging (OK) to be the most common approach for mineral resource estimation, with inverse distance weighting (IDW) a close second, while drill hole spacing and search neighbourhood were the most common approaches for mineral resource classification.
Given that IDW has been shown for decades to be less accurate and more biased than OK, these findings suggest “a degree of inertia within the industry,” the researchers wrote, with preference apparently given to more familiar, straightforward methods.
“Academic research and new technologies only create real value when they are applied to real-world problems,” said Joyce Bazania, lead author of the study and a master’s student at the University of Alberta. “This paper highlights the prevalence of simpler, traditional approaches in industry workflows, despite the availability of advanced geostatistical methods for resource estimation and classification, leaving much of modern research’s potential unrealized in the mining industry.”
“Current state of industry practice in mineral resource estimation and classification,” J. Bazania
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