An area located 140 km north-west of Tarcoola was taken up to explore for possible economic high grade occurrences of palygorskite clays formed in Tertiary palaeochannels and associated playa lakes. This was a response to a discovery of palygorskite made initially by SADM stratigraphic drilling carried out in 1976 over the Garford Palaeochannel. Between March and May 1995 Mines and Energy South Australia (MESA) carried out an appraisal of the palygorskite potential within the palaeochannel (see RB 95/84) by conducting transient EM surveys along proposed drilling traverses, reconnaissance hand auger drilling of 4 holes totalling 6.73 m, field infrared analyses of clay samples, and scout RC drilling (34 vertical holes for a total penetration of 852 m). This work outlined an 18 km long by 1 km wide section of the palaeochannel having the highest grade palygorskite intersections. Clays with 50-75% palygorskite are confined to narrow intervals, 1-3 m in thickness, generally in the transition zone from illite/smectite clay to dolomitic clay. The overburden thickness is variable, and only one site, Paly Lake, was identified where palygorskite-dominant clays are present at the surface. 84 palygorskite samples were subsequently tested in the CSIRO Urrbrae laboratory in Adelaide, for mineral characterisation via X ray diffraction and SEM microscopy, and for clay rheological and absorbency properties. A 150 kg bulk sample was hand dug from Paly Lake between MESA holes P85 and P86, and sample subsets provided to Dominion Mining, the South Australian Institute of Technology and Amdel for them to carry out specific mineralogical studies. Beneficiated samples of the palygorskite were later submitted by Wallbridge and Gilbert to various overseas drilling mud manufacturing companies for commercial assessment. On 11/8/1995 Dominion Mining and Resolute Resources farmed into EL 2018 seeking gold and base metals, because of their recent Challenger gold discovery made only 15 km away to the south. As part of the joint venture agreement Dominion had to sole fund a regional regolith geochemical sampling programme to be completed by 31/12/1996. This work commenced in July 1995, when 504 calcrete samples were taken on a nominal 1.6 km staggered regional grid spacing, plus another 33 infill calcrete samples at a staggered 200 m spacing, this method being identical to that used to locate the Challenger mineralisation. At first only low order gold assay results were obtained by the infill sampling, but after November-December 1995, when another 577 infill samples generally taken at 400 m centres had been assayed, encouraging >5 ppb Au anomalous areas were identified at eight prospects, five of which were given high priority for RAB drilling. At Thunderbolt Tank prospect, 168 infill calcrete samples were collected around a regional sample anomalous in copper (261 ppm Cu). At Golf Bore prospect 186 infill calcrete samples were collected around a peak regional gold anomaly of 44 ppb Au, and returned values of up to 61 ppb Au from a zone with a 4 km north-east trending strike extent. At Campfire Bore 298 infill calcrete samples were collected around a regional gold anomaly of 15 ppb Au, which led to the delineation of a >10 ppb Au anomalous zone covering 1 km x 300 m. 38 infill calcrete samples collected at Jolly Swagman prospect returned a peak response of 6 ppb Au. 280 infill calcrete samples collected at Butterfly Tank prospect returned a peak response of 23 ppb Au. First pass RAB drilling undertaken at the above prospects was sited at 200 m x 100 m spacing, with hole spacings down to 50 m across the calcrete anomaly peak. The drilling done at Butterfly Tank and later on at Orion also targeted aeromagnetic anomalies (part of the outcome of pre-farm in, 1:25,000 scale solid geology magnetic interpretation work done by consultant Kevin Wills). Encouraging results for gold were soon obtained at Golf Bore and Campfire Bore, leading to evaluation RC drilling early in 1997. At Golf Bore, potentially economic gold mineralisation was identified in bedrock over an 800 m strike length, with best RAB intercepts of 8 m @ 2.75 g/t Au, 2 m @ 17.76 g/t, 4 m @ 5.01 g/t, 15 m @ 2.77 g/t and 4 m @ 11.66 g/t. The mineralisation appears to be associated with a large NE/SW striking shear. The host rock is a weakly foliated to strongly sheared biotite-quartz-feldspar gneiss. Alteration assemblages consist mainly of chlorite and lesser sericite and pyrite. the gold occurs in quartz veins with arsenopyrite. Late stage pegmatites and mafic dykes, including amphibolite, commonly cut across the gneiss. The first pass RAB drilling at Campfire Bore made best intercepts of 4 m @ 3.06 g/t Au, 1 m @ 30.32 g/t, 3 m @ 3.41 g/t and 12 m @ 4.9 g/t. Here the bedrock consists of garnet gneiss with lesser sheared chlorite schist and mafic and ultramafic rocks. Again the gold occurs in quartz veins with arsenopyrite, occupying two narrow NE/SW trending en echelon 'pods'. One notable feature seen here is intense chlorite alteration of the gneiss, developed close to and sub-parallel with the mineralisation. A 27 hole RAB and aircore drilling programme was undertaken late in 1997 to look for a southern extension of this prospect, but no significant gold intercepts were recorded. Aircore drilling within a palaeochannel in this vicinity revealed a thickness of up to 123 m of transported cover sediments covering a basement of slightly weathered gneiss. Further RC drilling was carried out at Golf Bore and Campfire Bore during 1998, reducing the hole spacing along traverses to 50 m and 100 m respectively, thereby outlining higher grade 1-2 m wide zones within the prospects carrying visible gold. In general, though, the grades of gold mineralisation found at these prospects are not as high as at Challenger. However, preliminary 3-D modelling of the distribution of drill intercepts made at both has indicated that defining shoot - style gold endowments similar to those occurring at Challenger remains a distinct possibility, if the drillhole traverse spacing is closed to 50 m or 25 m to gain the continuity between sections as seen at Challenger. The existence of small high grade gold shoots at depth or in up dip positions can then be better resolved. As part of broader regional exploration for gold and base metals, 10 rock chip samples were taken from isolated basement outcrops located about 15 km north-east of Golf Bore. The highest assay values obtained were from iron-rich gossans (282 ppm As, 417 ppm Cu, 135 ppm Ni, 255 ppm Zn and 57.9 ppm Co). 8 other rock chips collected from sparse outcrops of vein quartz and Archaean gneiss at Golf Bore South and in the Ibis and Rockhole areas returned only low order gold and base metal values. During May 1997 Dominion Mining contracted UTS Geophysics to conduct a detailed low level airborne geophysical survey over several Gawler Joint Venture prospects on the Gawler Craton, that included the Golf Bore and Campfire Bore prospects on EL 2018. As well, during July 1997 an orientation soil sampling programme was carried out at the Golf Bore prospect (and also at Monsoon prospect on Jumbuck EL 1971), aiming to establish the best sample medium and analytical technique to help focus delineation drilling after regional calcrete sampling has identified an anomaly. Calcrete, BLEG soil, lag and rock chip samples were taken at 37 sites and compared (by collecting 8 samples of each type at each site). Close-spaced calcrete sampling was shown to be the most sensitive and reliable way of fingerprinting basement mineralisation, with soil sampling a useful backup method in places where there is no calcrete formation. This conclusion was trialled further during 1998 by collecting 198 calcrete and 298 soil samples from a 50 m x 50 m sampling grid over the Campfire Bore prospect. This yielded a peak gold-in-calcrete high of 94 ppb Au in the centre of the prospect, plus a number of other >50 ppb Au surrounding values. The previous gold-in-calcrete high was only 23 ppb Au, determined by sampling on 100 m x 200 m centres. The new soil and calcrete results outlined two main north-east trending gold anomalies separated by a low gold zone at the interpreted position of a fault that dissects the mineralisation into two parts. Dominion had earlier decided that its established practice of doing regional calcrete sampling on a 1.6 km spacing was not enough to reliably detect basement gold mineralisation within its tenements, and that closer spaced calcrete samples of 800 m to 1 km apart would serve better for ground sterilisation. This conclusion was based partly on the results of taking 628 regional and 1956 infill calcrete samples from within EL 2018. A single inclined diamond drillhole was put down to 150 m depth at Golf Bore prospect in March 1998, twinning a previous RC hole in order to examine the structure of basement rocks. This site was chosen because hole 96GBRC269 had intersected four distinct mineralised intervals within a foliated biotite gneiss. Subsequent examination of the diamond drill core showed that gold anomalous zones often occur where the frequency of thin quartz veins increases and the foliation becomes parallel with pegmatitic veining. Resampling of retained drill cuttings of RAB drillholes from early drill coverage at Golf Bore and Campfire Bore prospects, addressing low value six-metre composites of the order of 0.1 ppm Au, returned several single metre intercepts >0.5 ppm Au which have better defined the >1.0 g/t Au contours for these prospects, making their supergene mineralisation envelopes appear more linear and continuous. Owing to the high expenditure exceeding licence commitments incurred in completing the gold prospect appraisal drilling, which work in total had comprised 21 aircore holes for 1108 m, 467 RAB holes for 18,725 m, 87 RC holes for 10,371.5 m, and the aforesaid single diamond hole for 150 m, no further work was conducted on the subject EL during the succeeding six years, while efforts were concentrated elsewhere within the joint venture tenement package. In particular, intensive brownfields gold exploration was undertaken outside of EL 2654 during 2003-2005, within a 60 km radius of the Challenger mine, when Dominion tried to find additional gold deposits which could be open cut and trucked to the Challenger ore processing plant during an impending production slowdown at Challenger that would be caused by the transition from open cut to underground mining operations. The selective evaluation of geochemical and geophysical targets within the brownfields area did not disclose any new gold resources, but a number of the targets still require further work.