An area of shallowly covered Curnamona Province metalliferous basement rocks abutting the South Australia / New South Wales border, approximately 80 km north-east of Olary, was believed to be prospective for stratiform lead-zinc-silver and stratabound copper-gold deposits which may have formed within an extensive strike length of Lower Proterozoic metasediments that are lateral equivalents to the Broken Hill Group. Of particular interest was a large ironstone body (the K1 prospect), where shallow drilling done by an earlier explorer had encountered a mineralised intercept of 7 m @ 0.14 g/t Au in pyritic quartz-magnetite rock. The accompanying magnetic anomaly is by far the strongest seen in the Broken Hill region, with a magnitude of near 7500 nT, and has a strike length in excess of 600 m. After Western Plains Gold assumed operating EL 2766 in its fifth year, with the intent of finding IOCG mineralisation in the basement rocks, it carried out ground geophysical traverses over the magnetic and gravity anomalies recognised at the K1 prospect. Subsequent geophysical modelling indicated the presence of a large, iron rich source body buried under ~120 m of cover. A discrete, ~1.5 mGal residual gravity anomaly was delineated just to the north of and partly coinciding with the main ground magnetic high. In mid-2005 the company successfully obtained PACE Initiative subsidy funds to assist it with drilling two diamond holes to test the prospect. However, a temporary shortage of available drilling rigs delayed the PACE programme completion until May 2006. Both of the KI test inclined drillholes penetrated significant intervals of quartz-magnetite-haematite (ironstone) lode material that is most likely of hydrothermal origin. Hole DDH K1-1 encountered the ironstone body at a downhole depth of 176.8 m, and continued in this material to a depth of 298.8 m, where a large cavity and broken rod string forced the hole to be abandoned. Drill core assay results show that spotty, low-level gold values occur between downhole depths of 168 and 220 m. The upper part of the ironstone averaged 0.53 g/t Au over the nine metre interval between 177 and 186 m, including 2 m @ 1.65 g/t Au. DDH K1-2 was drilled from a location 200 m south-west of DDHK1-1, and was completed at a total depth of 462 m. This inclined hole also intersected the ironstone body, towards what is interpreted to be its western end, from downhole depths of 125 to 185 m. Below 185 m, the gneissic rocks drilled are intensely quartz-K feldspar-chlorite altered, and contain sulphide bearing quartz-magnetite-haematite veins together with common disseminated pyrite and occasional veins of massive pyrite up to 10 cm thick. Narrow breccia zones are also present within the core. Assay results for DDH K1-2 are similar to DDH K1-1, with low level anomalous gold values present between downhole depths of 142.0 to 155.0 m and 223.2 to 231.0 m. The upper interval coincides with part of the massive ironstone intersected in this hole. Two high grade assays were obtained from the lower anomalous interval, with 7.12 g/t Au recorded from a 30 cm wide massive pyrite vein occurring between depths of 223.2 – 223.5 m. An assay of 4.46 g/t Au was recorded from the depth interval 225.0 – 226.0 m in a zone of prominent pyrite veining. Petrographic studies carried out on samples of the K1 prospect drill cores determined that primary lithologies comprise feldspathic and argillaceous sediments together with banded iron formation (BIF) and pegmatite. All these rocks apart from the pegmatites were metamorphosed during a regional tectonic event, to lower amphibolite facies. It appears that significant recrystallisation of the sedimentary units occurred as a result of the metamorphic processes, and generated massive to foliated granoblastic assemblages that broadly reflect primary sedimentary compositions. Brecciation, veining, alteration and mineralisation are considered to have occurred broadly with synmetamorphic timing, and brecciation appears to be better developed in the meta-feldspathic and meta-BIF sediments. Invasion by mineralising hydrothermal fluids utilised the fracture and breccia networks, producing discordant and concordant thin veinlets filled by quartz, magnetite, haematite, pyrite, and minor chlorite, muscovite, and monazite. Mineragraphically, the highest gold grades correlate well with the occurrence of abundant pyrite. The gold is considered to have been deposited in response to sulphidation reactions between invading mineralising fluid and host metasediments. Native gold grains were obtained by heavy-liquid mineral separation from a pyrite-rich altered meta-feldspathic sediment cored in DDH K1-2, at 223.35m depth, and this association confirms that native gold formed as part of the alteration assemblage. The drilling results, and magnetic susceptibility measurements made on the drill core, were used to refine the prospect geophysical model. A new interpretation suggested that the PACE project drilling had only tested a small part of the K1 ironstone body, which could be up to 1 km long, 150-200 m thick and might extend to a depth of more than 500 m. Western Plains Gold considered that the composition of the iron oxide lode shows strong similarities to ironstone bodies in the Cloncurry and Tennant Creek regions of Queensland and the Northern Territory where, in some instances, they host economic deposits of gold and copper. It noted that while the drill core assay results obtained from the two K1 holes are generally of low order, they clearly show that the hydrothermal system is significantly gold anomalous. Consequently there remained considerable potential for discovering higher gold values, and the company felt that further drilling was required to search for mineralisation of economic size and grade, particularly since evidence recorded from known, large iron-oxide associated copper-gold deposits such as Ernest Henry, Prominent Hill, Eloise and Selwyn has shown that economic mineralisation is often not confined to the main ironstone body, but can also lie alongside, or further along strike. Because the K1 ironstone body is so large, PlatSearch decided that the best way to continue to evaluate it would be to attempt to find geochemically anomalous zones within it by way of pattern drilling and sampling a series of fairly shallow vertical holes. To pursue this concept, Western Plains Gold made plans during May 2007 to drill an initial 15 vertical rotary/core holes for an estimated total of 2,000 m. Each hole would be diamond cored for 6-10 m into the bedrock to test the undrilled sections of both the ironstone body and the surrounding alteration envelope. Results from this drilling would then be used, in conjunction with further detailed analysis and modelling of the geophysical data, to define targets for a further deep drill test programme of two inclined diamond holes each to ~400 m dept. PACE Initiative funding would be sought for these latter two holes. Continuing delays in securing suitable drilling rigs were experienced by the JV partners, and the inability to advance the exploration programme led Western Plains Gold to exit the joint venture in September 2007. Therefore no work took place on the licence during Year 8. After Silver City Mining entered the EL 3478 consortium at the end of 2008, and became the new licence operator,the planned shallow geochemical exploration work at the K1 prospect was altered to be a low cost orientation mobile metal ion auger sampling survey of calcrete in soil there, to match other successful geochemical sampling methods recently used nearby on the Mundi Mundi Plains, at the Polygonum prospect across the border in New South Wales. During early December 2008, 40 auger drillholes were completed on the subject licence area to depths of between 0.5-2 m at hole spacings of either 50 or 100 m along three NW-SE traverses across the prospect. The traverses comprised a 2 km long baseline and two 450 m long lines on either side, each line being separated by 150 m from its neighbour. Partial leach analyses of the clay fraction in the soil calcrete samples disclosed some incongruent anomalies in gold, copper, zinc, lead, arsenic and nickel which gave the licensees enough encouragement to want to proceed with the deeper bedrock drill sampling programme previously proposed by Western Plains Resources in 2007. No work took place on EL 3478 during Licence Year 10 other than office preparations for siting the alternative 12 vertical rotary/core holes now proposed. However, due to the ramifications of the global financial crisis this drilling programme did not eventuate during licence year 11, and all intended work on the renewed EL 4705 was later abandoned and its tenure allowed to lapse.