The Goals of Data Collection and Its Statistical Treatment in the Earth Sciences The earth sciences are characterised by loose and complex relationships between variables, and the necessity to understand the geographical dis- tribution of observations as well as their frequency distribution. Our fre- quency distributions and the looseness of relationships reflect the com- plexity and intrinsic natural variation in nature, more than measurement error. Furthermore, earth scientists cannot design experiments according to statistical recommendation because the availability and complexity of data...