A three-month programme of coal exploration drilling in the west-central Arckaringa Basin, in the vicinity of a buried Permian coal occurrence recorded in 1969 in the SADM Karkaro 1 stratigraphic well, has resulted in the delineation of three deposits of Early Permian sub-bituminous coal within eroded remnants of original basin fill. Based on constructed structural contours of the Cretaceous/Permian unconformity and on isopachs of the overburden, the coal seams are interpreted as being preserved in topographical ridges trending northeast-southwest on the ancient Permian land surface. Between these ridges, younger former streams occupying parallel-trending palaeodrainage valleys appear to have eroded away the uppermost, coal-bearing Lower Permian sediments. The coal measures are believed to have been deposited in a deltaic backswamp environment, but the preserved host sediments are nowhere more than 60 m thick. BP thinks it is not likely that the coal seams intersected would be a mineable proposition, based on thickness and quality considerations.