Abstract
MANY years after Clark's investigation, only average content of chemical elements was used for comparison in different geochemical investigations1. Recently it was understood that it is necessary to investigate not only average content of an element but also a whole frequency distribution2,3. But useful investigation of the frequency distribution is rather difficult since it is necessary to reveal the stochastical model of the geochemical process which causes this distribution4. It is impossible to do this in routine geochemical investigations, and thus it is necessary to choose some simple estimators of distribution which emphasize its specific features and, above all, the quantity of information included in this distribution about concentration of the element in a random sample.
References
Clark, F. W., U.S. Geol. Surv. Bull., 770 (1924).
Vistelius, A. B., Geochimiya, No. 2, 116 (1962) (in Russian).
Vistelius, A. B., J. Geol., 68, 1 (1960).
Vistelius, A. B., Geology and Geophysics, No. 7, 3 (1963) (in Russian).
Kulback, S., Information Theory and Statistics (J. Wiley and Sons, 1959).
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VISTELIUS, A. Informational Characteristic of Frequency Distributions in Geochemistry. Nature 202, 1206 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1038/2021206a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2021206a0
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