We first observed an unusual almost N/S edge of Lake Cowan, north of Higginsville in WA almost parallel to Focus Minerals' (FML.AX) Treasure Island in August 2010, as shown on the left hand side of Figure 1. After exploration in the past year, it has been shown that this edge is parallel to the St Ives gold mine sequence that has been delineated as passing over the island.

More recently in September 2011, we visited Exorre's (XG.TO) Cerro Moro gold/silver exploration project SW of Puerto Deseado in the Santa Cruz province of Argentina.

Although the NW/SE Carla trend (extending SE from the Esperanza trend) and joining the E/W striking Zoe trend has been delineated through exploration, it can be seen that the adjacent salt lake (to the west) has NW/SE straight line edges (in the right hand side of Figure 1) almost parallel to the Carla trend.

There are other examples - however, these appear to be the most obvious and appear to back up the observational theory.

Then there is why the salt lakes are there and what mineralisation may exist under them as has been successfully shown at GFI's (previously WMC's) St Ives Gold Mine near Kambalda in WA. Increased exploration of the salt lakes is anticipated in WA, and perhaps other parts of the world too.

Consequently, examine the edges of salt lakes on your and nearby properties as they could provide a clue towards your next discovery.

Disclosure and Disclaimer : This article has been written by Keith Goode, the Managing Director of Eagle Research Advisory Pty Ltd, (an independent research company) who is a Financial Services Representative with Taylor Collison Ltd.

Figure 1. Salt lake Edges in WA and Argentina