The licensee, Peter Forwood, has been involved in mineral exploration at Bute for many years, initially with North Broken Hill Ltd in ELs 248, 420, 577 and 972, and has pursued the exploration of the area through many phases. Two important features contributing to his continuing interest in the area were (a) the large, deep-sourced gravity/magnetic anomaly lying adjacent to the township of Bute, and (b) the occurrences of trace to minor amounts of copper mineralisation that were encountered in nearly every hole drilled. Although base metal mineralisation occurs in each of the Cambrian, Adelaidean, and Mesoproterozoic sequences of the area, the predominance of recent such discoveries made elsewhere in South Australia in Mesoproterozoic rocks, particularly of large orebodies, has progressively focussed exploration around Bute on the pre- Adelaidean, and caused the licensee to "chase" this sequence further to the east, under increasing cover. Accordingly, the licensee was keen to respond, when approached in August 2004, to PIRSA's offer of PACE Initiative funding of agreed co-operative mineral exploratory drilling. His initial proposal was to further test a strong gravity anomaly lying in the vicinity of a mineralised diamond drillhole, B23, bored in 1980 near the township of Bute. The proposal was accepted, but PIRSA geologists had misgivings about the interpretation of the gravity anomaly, and required an expert professional interpretation of the data. Such an interpretation and further gravity data modelling was undertaken, which confirmed that the anomaly was a strong one, but showed it to be in part if not entirely due to a feature present at a much shallower depth than the prospective Mesoproterozoic basement. The licensee then submitted an alternative target, based on a purely geological follow-up of the mineralisation in the old DDH B23. This alternative proposal was accepted. During late May - early June 2005, a total of 592 m of vertical RC drilling was conducted in three holes located very close to the township of Bute. The drilling operation itself was efficient, but was conducted in a rather hurried manner in order to vacate the paddock before the farm owners dry-seeded the whole area. Each of the holes passed through a normal, expected cover sequence of Cambrian dolomite, then Tapley Hill Formation and Woocalla Dolomite, before entering Mesoproterozoic bedrock at about 120 m depth. The bedrock was somewhat variable in character, both laterally and with depth down to about 200 m, consisting of silicified black shale type fine-grained metasediments and/or very fine grained metabasic rocks, but no mineralisation of note was encountered. Minor pyrite and trace chalcopyrite was seen in the basement in hole B63, while more pervasive, authigenic pyritic enrichment occurs in hole B62 within a rudite facies of the overlying Woocalla Dolomite. What is now seen as a terminal problem for trying to define exploration targets in the Bute area is the lack of an effective geophysical method for coping with a cover thickness of 100 m or more of younger strata. The Mesoproterozoic sequence in the area of interest is strangely lacking in magnetic character, despite containing various basic igneous lithotypes. The detailed aeromagnetic results of the North Broken Hill Ltd and SAEI-B6 low-level surveys have been analysed, and various ground magnetic surveys were conducted, with negligible benefit. Electrical geophysics is rendered ineffective by the depth of cover of younger formations, and especially by the sulphidic and carbon/graphite-bearing units in the blanketing Tapley Hill Slate and Woocalla Dolomite. Gravity was once thought to provide an answer, but the latest results of drilling the best anomaly show that there are unexpectedly strong (density) variations in the limestone-dolomite sequences of the Cambrian, which, being shallow, dominate the gravity picture. These problems and a continued lack of success have led to the termination of exploration activity in the area by the licencee. In retrospect, the area lacks the pervasive alteration which might be expected in the environment of a large orebody. The alteration recognised in petrological work is either restricted to the basic volcanics, or is a "dry" metamorphism. Any significant prospectivity remaining in the Mesoproterozoic at Bute is thought to reside at great depth; the gravity and magnetic features mentioned above may be sourced in an older sequence, perhaps 1000 m below surface in this area.