This paper is from Session 6A: Environmental statistics

which comes under Topic 6: Statistics education, training and the workplace

Other papers under session 6A ... 6A1: The need for teaching weighted distribution theory: illustrated with... 6A3: Statistics education in a conservation organisation — towards...

(Monday 12th, 16:30-18:00)

Amarillo by morning: data visualization in geostatistics

Presenter

• William Harper (Otterbein College, United States)

Co-author

• Isobel Clark (Alloa Business Centre, United Kingdom)

Abstract

“Amarillo by morning, Amarillo’s where I'll be” comes from a country song released by George Strait in the 1980's. Around this time Bill moved to the Amarillo Texas area hoping to bury highlevel nuclear waste. Like a fine country song, this presentation paints a haunting visual image of the Wolfcamp aquifer underlying the waste site. If a breach occurred, how many mornings until the nuclear waste arrived at Amarillo? Using a variety of visualization tools blended with geostatistical methods, an overview of universal kriging is given at an introductory level. This project was the source of Bill's first geostatistical analysis and was sadly killed in 1988 by the US government. On the plus side, he met his lovely Texas bride Paula there. Meanwhile he and coauthor Isobel have continued their geostatistical journey teaching classes which range from 14 year-old Slovakian High School kids to PhD candidates and beyond.

Other papers under session 6A ... 6A1: The need for teaching weighted distribution theory: illustrated with... 6A3: Statistics education in a conservation organisation — towards...