In May 1992 six traverses of shallow RAB drilling were completed at the Angas prospect (222 holes for a total penetration of 1550 m). The objective was to test the Cambrian bedrock geochemistry beneath shallow Tertiary and Recent sediments that cover much of the full extent of the earlier defined soil geochemical anomalous zone. The RAB drillhole sample data demonstrated that the residual soil profiles provide an excellent geochemical sampling medium, except where Tertiary regolith deposits onlap the Cambrian bedrock. Weathered bedrock exhibiting anomalous (>500 ppm) zinc and lead plus trace gold was found to extend for 230 m beyond the centre of a 110 m wide band of ferruginous, garnet rich and gahnite-bearing rock that was intersected in drillholes on Traverse 4, immediately north of the Callington Road. Groundwater and streambed sediment sampling was undertaken by Aberfoyle before the above drilling phase was started, to obtain local baseline environmental chemistry data for future reference, in view of the Angas deposit's proximity to the Strathalbyn township boundary (600 m at the closest point). Appraisal drilling of the Angas prospect commenced during July 1992, initially aimed at testing the causes of geochemical and geophysical anomalies that appeared to be related to base metal - prospective rocks which Toteff had mapped at the surface in four places. By September, 5 RC holes for 992 m, plus 5 inclined diamond drillholes (774.2 m percussion precollared and 1460 m HQ3/NQ cored) had been completed, and downhole EM surveys had been run in seven of the holes to help guide further drilling. Several narrow but high grade intercepts of base metal sulphides were made on one grid section at the centre of the prospect, near the Callington Road, and most of the holes encountered broad intervals carrying between 0.2-1.5% Pb+Zn. The best intercept obtained was 4.7 m @ 6.5% Pb, 12.2% Zn, 73 ppm Ag and 0.9 ppm Au from beneath 261.3 m depth in diamond hole AN5. By March 1993, another 8 westward-directed diamond holes for 4067.2 m, plus 2 percussion holes for 371 m, had been completed along 10 east-west drill sections at collar sites and with declinations designed to delineate the deposit's geology and structure in its upper levels. A number of typical characteristics of this deposit were thus able to be recognised: - lode indicators are principally the gangue minerals gahnite, garnet and staurolite; - both the upper and lower contacts of the lode(s) with country rocks have been retrogressively sheared (as shown by remobilised ore textures) by north-northwest trending major shear zones which contain a pyrrhotite-sericite assemblage, and are up to 3.5 m wide; - there are also several brittle fault zones, up to 10.7 m wide, that flowed groundwater when drilled, and this water was heavy metal - bearing; - structural elements logged in the drill cores imply that folding of the lode(s) has occurred within at least two antiformal flexures formed on the eastern arm of a larger synform; - rare amphibolite bodies appear to have been emplaced in the Angas area prior to the regional deformation events. Importantly, a base metal concentration gradient of more than two orders of magnitude, between the lode mineralisation and its immediate host, was a widely observed and abruptly expressed feature at Angas, which Aberfoyle thought is due to emplacement during a single, large scale sulphur and metal - rich exhalative event that acted as the source for the sulphide mineralisation. At this stage of the subsurface investigation, the dual lode horizons intersected appeared to persist close together over the 2 km of sections drilled, and lay within a 30-80 m wide zinc and iron - rich peraluminous meta-exhalite envelope. Although no mafic volcanic rocks had yet been recognised in the Kanmantoo Group host rocks of the Strathalbyn region, the high manganese (garnet) and magnesium (chlorite) contents of these rocks were diagnostic factors in characterising the Angas sulphide mineralisation as belonging to the metamorphosed sedex class, whic has many notable world-scale base metal deposits belonging to it. Other deposit definition work undertaken by Aberfoyle at Angas during 1992-93 included the acquisition and interpretation of 6.1 line km of ground magnetic profiles obtained along 8 prospect grid lines, the collection and analysis of 418 soil geochemical samples, the trial samping of mercury concentrations in soil gas samples collected along a single traverse at the southern end of the deposit, and the conduct of a two-loop transient EM survey in Mr Jettner's southern paddock, over the southern part of the prospect, extending as far as the Strathalbyn-Milang Road. All of this surface exploratory work yielded results that gave good encouragement to continue deep RC and diamond drilling of the deposit in order to define an economic base metals reserve there.