The recent Geoscience Australia - run regional seismic traverse across the Stuart Shelf has revealed the architecture of the buried Neoproterozoic sediments there, and also that of the structures created during the Delamerian inversion. Dewatering of basin sediment fill that occurred during this inversion would have been controlled by the basal boundary shape of the basin, and the loci of major faults which disrupt basement and terminate the basin - both of these critical features are now seen in the seismic imaging. Basin dewatering fluids expelled during Delamerian inversion of the Adelaide Geosyncline would have been directed up re-activated faults forming the Torrens Hinge Zone. These faults would have controlled the extent of fluid flow and probably would have channelled metal - carrying solutions into the Cambrian basal Andamooka Limestone, where MVT base metal mineralisation could have formed. The trace of the last (i.e. most westerly) major fault, where this fluid flow may have been focussed, can now be discerned on magnetic images once its general location is known from the GA seismic interpretation. The target Andamooka Limestone formation top in the region is predicted to range between just near surface (10-60 m depth) down to a depth of 200 m below surface. The basis for applying for a PACE Initiative Year 4 exploration drilling subsidy was to assess the applicability to the Stuart Shelf of an innovative exploration technique called Soil Desorption Pyrolysis (SDP), which employs a true soil gas analysis tool that looks at a broad range of gaseous species emitted from mineralisation. SDP is a relatively new geochemical technique that involves "fingerprinting" of mineral deposits types with a high degree of confidence. SDP measures trace amounts of volatile compounds that are adsorbed onto clay-sized particles in soil. Volatiles such as light hydrocarbons, halogens and sulphur compounds migrate readily through thick columns of rock. Most of these compounds reach the surface and are lost to the atmosphere. However, a tiny proportion of the migrant gas present in the soil just below ground level is adsorbed onto the surface of soil particles. Such soil material is sampled for SDP purposes, and the gas composition measured. It is known that porous rocks degas constantly due to burial, diagenesis, metamorphism and interaction with groundwater. However, ore deposits and the fluids that form them are chemically very different from their surroundings, and are frequently also associated with high temperatures. The net result is that the gas flux above a buried ore deposit is quite distinct from the regional background signal. The search for MVT deposits is particularly well suited to application of the SDP approach, because hydrocarbons released from a basin's fill are very commonly associated with MVT mineralisation, and are particularly easily detected by SDP. Tasman's SDP soil survey recently conducted on EL 3209 had been able to define two priority MVT mineralisation targets above the interpreted position of the major basin margin fault at Chudy's prospect, located on a broad claypan approximately 40 km north of Olympic Dam. Earlier inspection of the GA seismic data had clearly identified the nature of this fault, while the availability of detailed aeromagnetic data had enabled reliable tracing of its near surface expression, thus allowing focussed SDP sampling of the overlying soil. In the PACE funding proposal, two drill traverses comprising five cored drillholes were planned across the best SDP soil anomalies to test for base metal sulphides. During June-July 2007 5 RAB precollars totalling 449.2 m and 3 vertical diamond tails for 433.9 m were drilled into the target stratigraphic interval. Apart from some minor chalcopyrite seen in core cut near the base of the Andamooka Limestone, which is a regional feature that is commonly observed, no visible base metal sulphides were met with, so the SDP anomalies presently remain unexplained. Because of the lack of mineralisation, no drill cores or cuttings were submitted for assay. However, all of the unsectioned cores were treated with a staining reagent indicator solution to test for the presence of zinc, with negative results.