Exploration for Olympic Dam type or Cloncurry style iron oxide - associated copper-gold deposits, and for Broken Hill / Cannington style stratabound silver-lead-zinc deposits, both possibly formed within buried Palaeoproterozoic basement in a small and attenuated area of shallow to moderately thick cover located 90 km east of Arkaroola and 100 km north of Benagerie Outstation, has focussed on the prospectivity of three discrete aeromagnetic anomalies which were thought to originate from magnetite/haematite-rich volcanic breccia rocks similar to those encountered nearby to the south-west at the recently drilled Dolores East prospect within the Platsearch JV's EL 2579. Here such rocks encountered within diamond drillhole QBE1 had been shown to contain an average of 598 ppm Cu over a 192 m thick depth interval. The first two years of licence tenure were used to conduct office-based geophysical studies of the available magnetic and gravity data, aimed at prioritising potential drilling targets and assessing what extra data was needed to confirm their viability. After a joint venture agreement was signed with Newcrest Operations on 19/4/2005, providing a substantial exploration funding boost over the next 5 years and requiring a diamond drillhole to be completed in the first 6 months to test a basement IOCG-U target, field work commenced with the acquisition of detailed ground magnetic and gravity surveys. During March 2005, 4 traverses of a multi-licence and multi-target ground magnetic survey were read over aeromagnetic anomaly A on EL 2948, to allow better estimating of the depth to its source. Modelling of the data profiles produced an estimate of 450 to 500 m. This anomaly lies on the south-western flank of a large, ~7 km x 5 km gravity anomaly. Newcrest decided that infill data was needed for the existing PIRSA regional 2 km spaced gravity coverage so as to refine the geophysical models for all four aeromagnetic anomalies seen on EL 2948. Therefore semi-detailed gravity grids were read over anomalies A and G in the southern and central part of the licence during August-September 2005, for a total of 327 stations read at 500 m x 500 m spacing, as part of a survey total of 2293 new gravity stations that were spread across six tenements. The new gravity data acquired at Poverty Lake did not delineate any positive gravity features that coincide with the magnetic anomalies, which downgraded their IOCG prospectivity significantly. However, Newcrest's subsequent remodelling of all the magnetic and gravity data for anomaly A, informed by the results of recent drilling carried out on neighbouring Frome EL 3019, indicated a likely lesser depth of 400 m to reach the top of this feature, so out of the two target anomalies, it was chosen for drilling first. Preparations for the drilling of a single vertical, rotary mud-precollared diamond core hole to a depth of around 600 m were made during licence Year 4, while awaiting contractor availability of a suitable all wheel-drive drill rig needed to gain access onto the preferred drill site. Watson Drilling Services of Deniliquin, NSW, spudded the rotary mud precollar to hole BRD014 on 9/4/2008. Unfortunately, the rig equipment was unable to penetrate to basement due to encountering excessively high inflows of artesian groundwater, and on 15/6/2008 the hole was terminated while within Frome Embayment clastic sediments at a depth of 321.7 m, after having run and cemented 150 mm PVC casing and then switched from mud to HQ3 diamond coring at 304 m depth. No geological or other technical data was recorded for this hole, and no samples were collected for assay. Newcrest recommended to its partners that no further exploration be done on the Poverty Lake tenement owing to the groundwater situation and the probably too discouragingly thick cover, obscuring what were deemed to be low priority basement geophysical anomalies. During the remainder of 2008, on the JV's adjoining Frome EL 3952, Newcrest did successfully complete another 6 vertical rotary mud precollar holes (BRD008 - BRD013) plus four NQ diamond - cored tails for 948.3 m, and in March 2009 it undertook the rehabilitation of all seven drill sites and their access tracks. No work ensued on the subject EL 3831 during licence Years 8, 9 and 10, after Newcrest returned management of the exploration programme to PlatSearch in December 2010. During May 2011, PlatSearch made plans to carry out a search for possible economic buried sedimentary uranium deposits that could have formed in the Tertiary cover strata on the licence area, by using new public domain regional EM data from AGSO's recently released Frome Embayment Airborne EM Survey. Platsearch had also been conducting a review and digital data compilation of the Benagerie Ridge JV project exploration results so far obtained, and had concluded that Newcrest had already tested all of the better, more obvious targets, i.e. four gravity anomalies and one discrete magnetic anomaly. PlatSearch considered that the occurrence of elevated REE within rocks cored in drillhole BRD007 that appear to have IOCG affinities was an encouraging find. However, by mid-2012, the company also thought the current economic climate militated strongly against any chance of securing another joint venture partner to fund further exploration on the Benagerie Ridge, so tenure was allowed to lapse at the expiry of the fifth year of EL 3831.