The concept of spatial stochastic processes and the techniques of geostatistics and stochastic inversion are presented as a means for evaluating the spatial variability of thermal properties and temperature in sedimentary basins. Data from the Uinta Basin of NE Utah are used to demonstrate the analysis. Bottom hole temperatures from oil and gas wells provide the best opportunity for a spatial analysis because of the large number and wide distribution of data. Errors in bottom hole temperatures are not too large to preclude their use and stochastic inversion provides an optimum method for removing random noise while retaining spatial resolution. Corrected bottom hole temperatures from 235 wells in the Uinta Basin are used to estimate: [...]
