In a search conducted over an area lying beyond but near the southern edge of Coober Pedy township, looking primarily for possible economic buried Mesoproterozoic basement-hosted copper-gold deposits of predominantly IOCG type, the licensee Nova Energy initially carried out a review and GIS compilation of existing exploration data, followed by a field reconnaissance of aerial radiometric anomalies and their associated surface geology. Some historically worked occurrences of copper mineralisation were inspected and sampled: one site returned 425 ppm Cu from a haematitic feldspar breccia containing minor magnetite and siderite, and this occurrence was deemed to have apparent IOCG mineralisation affinities. Consequently, the accompanying magnetic anomaly, and other similar magnetic anomalies, plus certain discrete regional gravity anomalies both with and without related magnetic highs, were targeted in eight separate locations for new exploratory drilling aimed at testing the potential of the basement concealed by ~150 m thickness of Cretaceous sedimentary cover. After an unforeseen year's delay occasioned in obtaining a suitable drilling rig and Aboriginal heritage clearance permissions, the drilling programme began during November 2006, when eight vertical RC precollar holes for a total penetration of 525 m were completed, although being subject to major technical difficulties. Problems encountered with the unstable geological nature of certain beds present in the Cretaceous sedimentary cover, originating especially from running sands and swelling clays which both served to bog the drill rods, meant that most later-drilled holes were stopped well before reaching basement, and were not sampled geochemically. To rectify matters, 596.3 m of HQ diamond core tail drilling was successfully completed during March-April 2007, but only after re-drilling 254 m of, and temporarily casing off, the Cretaceous uphole sections using rotary mud methods. The target basement depth was found to be highly variable (40-151 m). The basement rocks drilled were granodiorite and granite gneiss, which contain only traces of disseminated sulphide mineralisation, mostly pyrite. Only one of the diamond holes, CPNDD7, encountered enough magnetite in the granite gneiss to explain a magnetic anomaly. Hole CPNDD4 was believed to exhibit evidence of 'healed' igneous breccias within granitoid rocks, but only in certain narrow cherty zones. Some very low order anomalous copper, arsenic and uranium were returned in the core assay results, and only background radiation (< 25 cps) was detected by conducting scintillometer scans of the drill cores. Although the drilling results had given scant encouragement for further work, Nova Energy next commissioned Haines Surveys to acquire a semi-regional infill gravity survey during November 2007, to obtain new gravity data which might improve the current gravity anomaly images and thereby help with selection of new drilling targets. 559 gravity stations were read at 1 km x 1 km spacing, closing to 1 km x 500 m over prospective magnetic features. Nine gravity anomalies with amplitudes greater than 4 mGal were highlighted within the tenement area, the largest anomaly response being 9 mGal. When Toro Energy took ownership of Nova Energy in February 2008, that company assumed exploration management of EL 3437 and performed a re-interpretation of all of the gravity data using 3-D inversion methods. Plans were made to conduct IP surveys over selected gravity anomalies. However, no field work was undertaken in the following third and fourth licence years. An attempt was made to farm out the ground, but the companies approached all declined to participate, expressing their opinion that the defined gravity targets were likely to be caused by high grade, dense metamorphic rock units which are known to exist widely within the Mount Woods and Mabel Creek basement domains. Toro Energy carried out wireline gamma ray logging of Nova Energy's five cored drillholes during early 2009. Moderately high gamma counts were recorded that correspond with cored basement intervals containing elevated rare earths contents, and so it was concluded that the uranium must be physically co-existing with the rare earths. Toro Energy had the CSIRO perform a mineral phase indentification study of a selected core sample taken from 174.5 m depth in drillhole CPNDD4, using SEM and XRF methods. This work determined that the radiometrically detected uranium resides within the thorium-uranium silicate mineral thorite.