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.