Holocene lacustrine gypsum beds, believed to have formed around 6000 years ago by the evaporation of saline water in a series of shallow lakes and lagoons that had developed along the ancestral Driver River watercourse, were the objectives of early exploration on the subject EL 2550. A surface layer of whitish gypsite (clay-sized gypsum particles) has since then been produced by weathering and wind erosion of the original evaporitic deposits, and in places this transported material is seen today as distinctive lunette dunes occupying the eastern, down-wind side of local topographic depressions. East of Konanda rail siding, the licensee's machine auger drilling on a known gypsite occurrence, of 61 appraisal holes each to a depth of 1 m, has defined the existence of an inferred gypsite resource of 10,000 tonnes that is concealed beneath about 50 cm thickness of sandy overburden; this is in addition to the exposed and newly mapped indicated resources of 20,000 tonnes. An average deposit grade of 70-80% gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O) is expected to be realised by future selective mining. Olliver Geological Services registered a mineral claim, MC 3066, over this deposit on 17/7/1998, and subsequently the grant of a 7-year mining lease there, ML 6034, was approved on 5/2/1999. In the near vicinity, the licensee subsequently discovered three more small gypsum occurrences by digging and logging trenches at interdunal corridor sites located from 500 m to 2.5 km away to the north. At Konanda no 2, the closest to the above deposit, indicated resources of 3000 tonnes were outlined over an area of 2025 square m. On Schumann's farm 1 km further to the north, logging of trenches dug in the landowner's private gypsum mining pit outlined another indicated resource of 3000 tonnes extending to 1 m depth over an area of approximately 3000 square m. In a separate dune corridor 1 km distant, 13 new trenches were dug to reveal an indicated resource of 2500 tonnes in an horizon 0.92 m thick that covers about 2700 square m. A composite of grab samples taken from four of the trenches here assayed 72.2% gypsum. All four of the described deposits have been classified as commercial Grade 2 gypsum [67-81% CaSO4.2H2O], with very low salt [NaCl] content. The latter three were regarded by the licensee as being too small to warrant current exploitation. Ensuing poor demand for gypsum by the surrounding arable farm marketplace in the 2000 and 2001 drought-affected sowing seasons resulted in only 125 tonnes of production from ML 6034 being sold, the remainder being stockpiled. During 2002, which was an excellent wheat-growing season, Eyre Peninsula Gypsum mined 1131 tonnes of gypsum from the Konanda no 1 deposit (ML 6034). Again owing to drought, during 2003 there were no sales of gypsum from ML 6034, and no gypsum mining or exploration took place. On 30/8/2000, the licensee entered into a joint venture with Helix Resources Ltd, allowing the latter company to explore on EL 2550 for possible Palaeoproterozoic Hutchison Group stratabound Cu-Au or Pb-Zn mineralisation as part of its Carappee Project, and for diamonds. No field work addressing these commodities was undertaken during 2001 and most of 2002, while Helix was systematically exploring its other project areas on Eyre Peninsula. However, during November 2002, 116 soil calcrete geochemical samples were collected on an 800 m x 200 m grid spacing across the north of EL 2550, to test an inferred faultline extension of the Sugarloaf Hill structural trend which had been found to be multi-element anomalous further to the north-east, on EL 2858. The assay results proved disappointing, with only low order values returned, e.g. maxima of 5 ppb Au, 18 ppm Cu, 20 ppm Pb and 22 ppm Zn. It was concluded that the prospective trend does not extend onto EL 2550. Because Helix Resources' RAB drilling of the Sugarloaf anomaly on adjacent tenements early in 2003 gave poor results, with only silver showing significant anomalism over broad intersections, the perceived potential of the Carappee and Cockabidnie areas to host economic copper-gold mineralisation was downgraded. Helix decided not to conduct further work in these or the Karkarook region.