The Bookartoo ochre mine, which lies 19 km south-east of Parachilna on the western face of the Heysen Range, for centuries has been a traditional and important source of quality ceremonial decorative pigment for the aborigines of central and eastern Australia. Title to the deposit is currently held by the Aboriginal Lands Trust, and it is excluded from the operation of the South Australian Mining Act. A red-brown ochre, primarily earthy haematite with minor calcite and silica, infills joints and fractures in a dolomite horizon directly below that stratum's contact with an overlying mottled limestone, both of which form lower facies of the Wilkawillina Limestone of Early Cambrian age. The haematite and associated minor willemite mineralisation probably formed by arid weathering and redistribution of sulphide ore precipitated from mineralising fluids in karst - type cavities and collapsed breccia at the top of the dolomite unit. The deposit is small and of low metalliferous grade, but has large inferred reserves of material suitable for traditional aboriginal uses.