Exploration undertaken in an area of practically no outcrop that is situated north and north-west of the Ediacara Range, on the eastern side of Lake Torrens, has aimed primarily at investigating the mineral potential of a large, low amplitude aeromagnetic high that was interpreted to represent a possible mineralised basement high structure existing at depth. A secondary objective was to determine the potential for economic sodium carbonate evaporite mineralisation within Miocene lacustrine strata deposited along the eastern margin of the Tertiary Pirie-Torrens Basin. After acquiring preliminary ground magnetic and gravity profiles across the target magnetic anomaly, which confirmed its magnitude and extent, a 14 km x 10 km grid of 2 km spaced lines was laid out to the north-east of Mount James to facilitate 1:20,000 scale geological mapping, rock chip sampling (267 samples), a seismic refraction survey, and semi- detailed and infill ground magnetics and gravity profiling totalling 28.4 line km. The seismic work was intended to establish the depth of Cainozoic cover overlying the inferred base metal prospective Palaeozoic and Adelaidean rocks. A mapping investigation of some sparsely barite and malachite-mineralised, ferruginised diapiric carbonate breccia outcrops occurring on the gridded area concluded that they were fault-related and perhaps had formed relatively recently in comparison to diapirs deeper within the Flinders Ranges. Dolomitic veins within the breccias were sampled and showed a distinct anomalous Ba-Mn-Sr-Cu association. Sampling of groundwater from wells in the vicinity gave low order base metal and radon anomalism which supported the model of recent fault and diapiric activity. A single rotary mud drillhole to 312 m total depth was completed in November 1978 to test the trona potential of the Tertiary sedimentary sequence, as part of a four-hole regional drilling programme being conducted by Comalco on several adjacent licences. Hole C/T1 passed through Tertiary clays and sands to 306 m depth, and was terminated in ?Adelaidean quartzite. No evaporite minerals of significance were encountered. Minor lignitic beds were intersected in the Eocene section. Following the completion of interpretations and source modelling of the ground magnetic and gravity anomaly data, a single vertical NQ fully cored diamond drillhole, MJ1, was put down just to the east of the north-eastwards curving Ediacara Fault, to investigate a probable shallowly subcropping block of Palaeozoic rock thought to be the subsurface continuation of the Pb-Zn mineralised Ediacara Range structure. This drillhole was terminated at 484 m depth in Bunyeroo Formation redbeds after passing through Wonoka Formation down to 89 m depth. No significant concentrations of either vein-style or disseminated base metals were found.