Approximately 1113 square km or 62.8% of the former area of EL 2281 Barton West, plus 378 square km or 13.7% of the former area of EL 2282 Barton East, have now been jointly relinquished as of 26/10/1999 due to the perceived diminished prospectivity of these portions of ground. No anomalous assays were reported from regional reconnaissance soil calcrete and rock chip geochemical sampling conducted in mid-1997 of exposed and shallowly buried Mulgathing Complex basement terrain, 60 km north-west of Barton. 1462 calcrete samples were collected on a 1.6 km x 1.6 km grid, and 3 grab rock chip samples were taken from basement outcrops on Barton East. Because of the low tenor of the assay results obtained from the now relinquished ground, it was thought that large deposits of gold or base metals are unlikely to exist there. No other field work was done on this ground over the remainder of its tenure.