Application of the discordant outlier detection and separation system in the geosciences

Abstract

Basically, two main types of statistical methods – robust and outlier-based – are available for handling experimental data; we document here the application of the outlier-based method. Due to the unavailability of a suitable software system for statistically correct application of the outlier-based method, a new computer program, DODESSYS (Discordant Outlier DEtection and Separation SYStem), was written for the application of 33 discordancy test variants to experimental data, constituting contaminated or uncontaminated normal statistical samples. We illustrate the application of the discordant outlier-based scheme by five specific examples; three include univariate data for which this procedure was specifically designed and two are for bivariate data for which this methodology can be easily adopted. We thus report new statistical information on two reference materials (granite G-2 and sediment IAEA-417), bryozoan species from eastern Oman, a new improved Na/K geothermometric equation, and a more significant correlation with water depth of the abundance of meiofauna from the Gulf of Mexico. Recently, two sets of multi-dimensional discrimination diagrams for basic as well as acid rocks have been proposed from statistically correct methodology of natural logarithm-transformation of element ratios; the diagrams also require that these ratios should be normally distributed. We present numerous examples of application of these new diagrams for inferring tectonic setting of Archaean to Recent rocks, both before and after testing the datasets for discordant outliers. We recommend that outlying observations should always be evaluated for their discordancy.