A Review of Australian Salt Lakes and Assessment of their Potential for Strategic Resources

Globally, salt lakes are major sources of lithium, potash, borates and other strategic mineral commodities. Salt lakes, or salars, in the semi-arid to arid regions of Chile, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia contain most of the world's low cost supply of lithium, while salt lakes in Jordan, Israel and China are significant sources of potash. Despite the large number of salt lakes distributed across Australia, public domain knowledge of saline lakes and their associated groundwater systems as potential sources for lithium, potash and other commodities is limited. This report has reviewed the publicly available information on Australian salt lakes and is accompanied by four maps showing which lakes have the highest potential for lithium, boron, potash and calcrete-hosted uranium.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Publication)
2013-01-01T00:00:00
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/76454

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Mernagh, T.P.

 1
Author

Bastrakov, E.N.

 2
Author

Clarke, J.D.A.

 3
Author

de Caritat, P.

 4
Author

English, P.M.

 5
Author

Howard, F.J.F.

 6
Author

Jaireth, S.

 7
Author

Magee, J.W.

 8
Author

McPherson, A.A.

 9
Author

Roach, I.C.

 10
Author

Schroder, I.F.

 11
Author

Thomas, M.

 12
Author

Wilford, J.R.

 13
Issue identification

2013/039

Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Custodian

MNHD
Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Website

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

Keywords

  • GA Publication

  • Record

Theme

  • economic geology

Theme

  • fluid reservoirs

Theme

  • mineral exploration

Theme

  • geochemistry

Theme

  • water

Keywords

  • AU

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

  • Earth Sciences

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
Restricted
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
OnLine resource

Hydrochemistry gdb

Hydrochemistry gdb

OnLine resource

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Lithium Deposits

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Lithium Deposits

Distribution format

  • pdf

OnLine resource

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Potash Deposits

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Potash Deposits

Distribution format

  • pdf

OnLine resource

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Boron Deposits

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Boron Deposits

Distribution format

  • pdf

OnLine resource

Record 2013/039 (docx)

Record 2013/039 (docx)

Distribution format

  • docx

OnLine resource

Record 2013/039 (pdf)

Record 2013/039 (pdf)

Distribution format

  • pdf

OnLine resource

1200 Lakes Zip

1200 Lakes Zip

OnLine resource

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Calcrete-Hosted Uranium Deposits

Map of Salt Lake Systems Prospective for Calcrete-Hosted Uranium Deposits

Distribution format

  • pdf

Resource lineage

Statement

A series of mineral systems criteria were developed for salt lake systems with potassium, lithium, boron and uranium. A range of input datasets were processed in order to develop these criteria. These were then combined to generate maps showing favourable regions in Australia where these systems may operate.

Hierarchy level
Non geographic dataset
Other

GA Publication

Description

OZCHEM national whole rock geochemistry database


Custodian: Geoscience Australia

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

National Geochemistry Survery of Australia - Catchment Polygons


Geocat No. 73085


Custodian: Geoscience Australia

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

National Geochemistry Survery of Australia - Geochemistry


Geocat No. 71973


Custodian: Geoscience Australia

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

U2/Th based on Radiometric Map of Australia


Geocat No. 70791


Custodian: Geoscience Australia

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

WASANT palaeovalley map


Geocat No. 73980


Custodian: Geoscience Australia

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

Climate zones (Koppen-Geiger classification)


Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/environ/other/koppen_explain.shtml


Custodian: Bureau of Meteorology

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

Evaporites extracted from Geoscience Australia's 1:1 million surface geology map


Geocat No. 74619


Custodian: Geoscience Australia

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

Geoscience Australia's Ozmin Database


Custodian: Geoscience Australia

Extent

N
S
E
W


Description

Northeast Yilgarn hydrogeochemical dataset


Gray, D., R. Noble, et al. (2009). Hydrogeochemical mapping of north-east Yilgarn groundwater. CSIRO Report P2009/1612. Perth, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation: 72p.

Description

Lake Disappointment area hydrogeochemistry dataset


Reference: http://www.water.wa.gov.au/

Description

Northern Territory hydrogeochemistry dataset


Reference: http://www.lrm.nt.gov.au/nrmapsnt

Description

Lake Frome hydrogeochemistry dataset


Reference: https://www.waterconnect.sa.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/deff7b03-ea50-7165-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

GA Record

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/76454

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/deff7b03-ea50-7165-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Date info (Revision)
2018-04-20T06:11:07
Date info (Creation)
2013-06-13T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

economic geology fluid reservoirs geochemistry mineral exploration water

Provided by

Access to the portal

Associated resources

Not available