Maximus Resources' Billa Kalina Project area lies within the Olympic Dam Province of the Gawler Craton, where the basement rocks host Olympic Dam, one of the largest iron oxide-associated copper-gold (IOCG) deposits in the world. IOCG deposits are typically hosted by quartz-hematite volcanic breccias, and contain anomalous copper, gold, barium, fluorine, and uranium and rare earth elements. The deposits have a range of deposit styles and, although usually occurring in areas of significant magnetic relief, are not always coincident with magnetic anomalies. The magnetic sources often lie much deeper than the mineralisation. The presence of a gravity signature is more definitive, as most significant IOCG deposits have an associated gravity anomaly. The project area is transected by the 'G2' Gravity Corridor, a north-northwest trending fundamental crustal lineament first described by E.S.T. O'Driscoll in 1990, which traverses the entire Australian continent. This gravity corridor also embraces the Olympic Dam deposit, which lies 70 km to the south-southeast of the project area. The recently discovered Prominent Hill copper-gold deposit, located 45 km west of the project area, confirms that episodes of hematite brecciation, flooding and mineralisation have occurred at other locations in the Gawler Craton. The strategic location of the Billa Kalina project area within the Gawler Craton, and lying along the G2 corridor, is regarded by Maximus Resources as making it highly prospective for discovering major deposits of copper, gold and uranium in Proterozoic basement rocks buried below about 300 m of younger cover rocks. A north-west trending gravity ridge was identified from South Australian regional gravity data, in the westward-extending panhandle of EL 3170. Three gravity highs and a small, circular magnetic anomaly are located along the ridge. Maximus undertook detailed gravity and magnetic surveys over the regional gravity ridge in late 2005 /early 2006, to enable modelling of specific target areas for drilling. Subsequent modelling of magnetic data indicated a depth to the basement of about 300 m. Modelling of the new gravity data indicated a dense basement feature extending along strike for 4.6 km, with a width of 380 m, but lying at significantly greater depth. It was decided to target two of the gravity highs, and to rely on the modelled magnetic basement depths as being more accurate. Two vertical, rotary mud precollared HQ/NQ diamond coreholes with a total penetration of 1194 m were drilled near the northern boundary of EL 3338 during the period June-August 2007, as a PACE Initiative Year 4 approved subsidised drilling programme. Both drillholes intersected basically the same sequence of rocks. The cover units intersected, in order going downhole, are the Tertiary Millers Creek Dolomite, then Billa Kalina Green Clay, the Cretaceous Cadna-owie Formation, and the Permian Boorthanna Formation. These units unconformably overlie meta-igneous basement rocks which were encountered at depths falling reasonably close to the geophysical prognoses. The basement rocks penetrated are a series of metamorphosed, pyroxene-plagioclase basalt flows having a greenschist facies mineral assemblage (actinolite-albite-chlorite-epidote-carbonate-titanite) , amongst which occur thinner interflows of andesite composition. Major portions of the metabasalt seen in the drill cores show fragmentation textures, and there are minor tuff beds. These units have been interpreted by the consultant petrologist to represent a possible arc related calc-alkaline petrogenetic association. All of the drill core was tested onsite with a scintillometer for the presence of gamma radiation. Then the core was transported to Adelaide, where it was photographed, before rock sample specific gravity readings were taken at the rate of least one per core tray, complementary magnetic susceptibility measurements were taken over every metre, and the core was geologically logged, after which selected sample pieces of half-core were removed for conducting whole rock, trace metal and rare earth element analyses plus petrological examinations.