On 27/3/1995, following a competitive bidding process, South Australian Coal Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Meekatharra Minerals Limited, was granted EL 2069 covering the Phillipson Coalfield located ~60 km south-west of Coober Pedy. The coalfield is being evaluated as a potential source of coal combustion fuel for the South Australian Steel and Energy Joint Venture (SASE) and other markets. During licence Year 1, in May-June 1995, 28 exploratory holes were drilled for a total penetration of 3730 m : they comprised 22 vertical open rotary mud holes, 5 partially cored HQ (61 mm) diameter holes for 427.05 m, and 1 partially cored 100 mm diameter hole for 33.6 m. The aims of this drilling campaign were to check: a) three areas in the region which each could possibly contain at least 150 Mt of coal which would be amenable to open cut extraction at attractive coal-to-waste ratios; b) two areas with a persistent 3.5 m to 4 m thick low ash seam which might be suitable for underground mining; and c) the indicated regional northwards trend of thickening overburden and gradually thinning and splitting seams. All of the drillholes were geophysically wireline logged with caliper, dual density, gamma ray and neutron tools, and 200 ply samples were taken from the drill cores for coal analysis at the NATA registered laboratory of Carbon Consulting International Pty Ltd in Newcastle, NSW. The drilling delineated two areas which might be optimal for open cut mining. A 12 square km area was defined in the vicinity of Ingomar Homestead that could contain 50 Mt of coal in situ within a single 3.5 m thick seam, the Rankin seam, lying at 29 m to 65 m depth. This was designated as the Ingomar deposit. At this time 35 Mt of the resource was classified as Measured and 15 Mt as Indicated. Later on, during November-December 1995, consultants were engaged to investigate the hydrogeological, geotechnical and environmental aspects of this coal resource, which it was believed could perhaps be developed further from other seams occurring at comparable depth and along strike. A second, larger area was identified which might hold a resource of >450 Mt of coal at an average waste-to-coal ratio of 7.5:1 within multiple seams lying at 45 m to 150 m depth. This was designated as the Corner Gate deposit. Information obtained from the drilling did not support the possibility of conducting an underground coal mining operation on the coalfield, because of the soft, poorly consolidated overburden and interburden sediments encountered. Hydrogeological findings were also adverse to this possibility. Therefore late in 1996 the licensee began designing a trial open pit to be dug at Ingomar for extracting bulk samples of the coal to use for combustion tests. The drill sample analyses showed that the average in situ quality of the Phillipson coal is as follows: - total moisture 32.7% - ash 11.2% - volatile matter 25.2% - fixed carbon 30.9% - specific energy 16.9 MJ/kg - total sulphur 0.89% - chlorine 1.6% - sodium 1.3%. The moderately low ash and high volatile matter contents of the coal, together with moderately high specific energy values, denoted a coal with attractive thermal properties and, taking into consideration the carbon content, made it well suited as a feedstock for the Ausmelt process to produce pig iron. Also, by washing the coal with water, its relatively high NaCl content should be reduceable by as much as 75%, to yield a product well suited to act as fuel for power generation. A second drilling campaign was conducted during November-December 1995 at the Ingomar deposit, with the objective of increasing the level of understanding of the geology to allow for the definition of a JORC 1992 - compliant coal resource, besides informing the making of detailed plans to extract a 50,000 t bulk sample to trial process for the SASE Pig Iron Project. This campaign involved completing 38 holes for 2726.2 m, which included 26 vertical open rotary mud holes, 5 of which had groundwater monitoring piezometers installed in them, and 11 partially cored HQ diameter holes (287.55 m cored), plus one fully cored 100 mm diameter hole, MPC29 to TD 58.3 m, to obtain samples for geotechnical and analytical testing purposes; this last hole was subsequently converted to a 200 mm diameter groundwater production well that was used for pump tests. During 1997, regional soil calcrete geochemical sampling was conducted on EL 2069 in response to published advice from the CSIRO concerning its effectiveness in Australia's arid regions as a first-pass targeting method for gold exploration (cf. MESA Journal 5, p. 5-8), and to try to emulate the reported nearby discovery of gold at the Challenger, Golf Bore and Campfire Bore prospects in July 1995 by Dominion Mining, through its use of the method. Meekatharra's sampling, aiming to find possible gold dispersions from inferred <100 m depth buried Proterozoic and Archaean basement rocks that are located along magnetic lineaments representing major shear zones, was done in two sorties. Initially, during March, May and June, 431 samples were collected over an ~200 square km area near the licence's south-western boundary. Follow-up infill sampling of 240 samples was done in October to confirm anomalous gold values, and the regional sampling was extended across another 150 square km located in the north of the licence. At most sampling sites the auger drill sampling tool encountered calcrete at depths of <3 m. The samples were assayed in a laboratory for seven gold pathfinder elements, Au, Ca, As, Cu, Cr, Ni and Pb. A number of gold-in-calcrete anomalies were detected in the south-west of the licence area, along the faulted margin of the Lake Phillipson Trough, ranging in value up to 12 ppb Au. Plans are being made to test the basement beneath these anomaly sites via RAB drilling to ~100 m depth along eight short traverses. The possible presence of Gawler Range Volcanics extrusive rocks adds to the prospectivity of this area.