A flexible true plurigaussian code for spatial facies simulations

Abstract

The current forms of plurigaussian simulation have serious limitations for applications to large numbers of geological facies, or units, which have complex contact relations. In this paper the authors present a true plurigaussian simulation (PGS) method, which can be applied in a simple way to any number of geological facies by using any number of Gaussians. A recursive technique is used for multi-dimensional integration of the Gaussian functions, which forms the major part of the PGS computation. A binary, dynamic contact matrix (DCM) is used to specify the contact relations among the facies; this method has proved to be simple, flexible and capable of dealing with general, complex contact relations. A method for incorporating into PGS multivariate correlations among any number of random variables is also included. A simulated example is used to demonstrate the application of the generalised PGS. This example shows that PGS is more robust to under-sampling than traditional direct indicator simulation.