  We present a new multi-dimensional data structure, which we call the skip
quadtree (for point data in R^2) or the skip octree (for point data in R^d,
with constant d>2). Our data structure combines the best features of two
well-known data structures, in that it has the well-defined "box"-shaped
regions of region quadtrees and the logarithmic-height search and update
hierarchical structure of skip lists. Indeed, the bottom level of our structure
is exactly a region quadtree (or octree for higher dimensional data). We
describe efficient algorithms for inserting and deleting points in a skip
quadtree, as well as fast methods for performing point location and approximate
range queries.
