Extensive geochemical and geological investigations were carried out over exposed and shallowly buried, predominantly flat-lying Lower Cambrian carbonate rocks in an area extending from the western edge of the Flinders Ranges to west of Lake Torrens. It was considered that lead-zinc mineralisation revealed by the South Australian Department of Mines' exploration in the basal Cambrian dolomites of the Ediacara structure, although sub-economic, was significant. In a broader sense, it was also realised that much more extensive nearby occurrences of Lower Cambrian carbonate rocks had not been systematically explored for base metal mineralisation. The concept behind this search aim was that, at Ediacara, the mode of occurrence of base metals in small and discontinuous orebodies, concentrated at levels between 100 and 200 feet above the Cambrian - Precambrian contact, is suggestive of some broad stratigraphic control to such mineral emplacement. The resulting work programmed involved performing detailed stream sediment and rock chip sampling, reconnaissance IP and ground magnetic surveying, diamond drilling of drainage lead anomalies and pseudo-gossanous Fe-Mn enriched outcrops recognised near the north-western margin of Lake Torrens (3 holes, total 642 feet) and near Brachina Gorge (5 holes, total 2525 feet), and geological mapping and petrographic studies of lead-mineralised horizons that were found within a 20 mile-long zone at the western edge of the central Flinders Ranges between Bunyeroo Gorge and Parachilna Gorge. The conclusion was that lead-zinc sulphide mineralisation, although undoubtedly extensive in the stratigraphic setting envisaged, was persistently feeble, with no plausible indications of economic metal concentrations, nor clues as to the direction in which such concentrations could be expected.