Introduction

Geological data, notably geochemical data, often take the form of a regionalized composition. The concept of regionalized composition combines the concepts of composition and coregionalization. A composition, also known in the literature as a closed array (Chayes 1962), is a random vector whose components add up to a constant. A coregionalization is a set of two or more regionalized variables defined over the same spatial domain, which is modeled as a realization of a vector random function. Here the term regionalized composition is used both for the vector random function used to model a composition and for the realization that we can observe. A regionalized composition can be, for example, a heavy-mineral suite along a river valley. The minerals are quantitatively determined through frequency counts and represented as percent-proportions of the entire heavy-mineral occurrence. Another example is the set of grades in a lead-copper-zinc deposit. In this instance, all components of each specimen are not quantitatively recorded and the grades are also not expressed as proportions of the whole of the measured components: only a small fraction of the composition in ppm is accounted for in each specimen. The problem with the statistical analysis of compositions has been stated historically in terms of correlations: the covariances are subject to essential nonstochastic controls, i.e., distortions which are due to the constant-sum constraint. These numerically induced covariances and correlations arise also with regionalized compositions and are called spurious spatial correlations. They falsify the picture of the spatial covariance structure and can lead to misinterpretations. This problem arises not only when the whole regionalized composition is analyzed, but also when interest lies only in a subvector. A second problem, singularity of the covariance matrix of a composition, has generally been considered only from a numerical point of view. Singularity is a direct consequence of the constant-sum constraint and, as in other multivariate methods, it rules out the use of estimation techniques such as cokriging of all components. Numerically the problem can be tackled either by taking generalized inverses or, equivalently, leaving one component out to avoid singularity of the matrices of coefficients.