Exploration for copper and gold mineralisation within a now wholly relinquished 213 square km licence eastern sub-block, located 18-30 km north-east of Burra, has utilised geochemical and geophysical methods to assess the potential of buried Adelaidean and older bedrock, owing to the lack of outcrop in this region. The grant licensee Bonanza Gold's review of results from previous drilling in the area had shown that the overlying Murray Basin sediments are 20-50 m thick. The company considered that the stable conditions which have assisted in the development of significant calcrete within the Murray Basin sedimentary sequence in the area would have facilitated the hydromorphic dispersion of other metallic elements besides calcium into the soil profile. The bedrock targets being sought comprise large porphyry-related copper-gold deposits and also, after November 2007 when Phoenix Copper acquired the licence ownership, small Burra-style structurally controlled epithermal/hydrothermal copper deposits. Late in 2004, Marathon Resources took over ownership of EL 3164 by buying out Bonanza Gold, and began field exploration by following a concept to target the Mongolata area for Intrusion Related Gold (IRG) mineralisation derived from the White Dam granitoid intrusion, which underlies a circular structure on the eastern side of the tenement. The IRG targets envisaged include greisen or skarn replacement type mineralisation formed in surrounding suitable host rocks, or in potentially favorable dilation zones which might have been generated by structural disruptions occurring prior to or during emplacement of the igneous intrusion during the Cambrian-Ordovician Delamerian Orogeny. Little was known of the Adelaidean basement in the area of disruption that is indicated by the gravity signatures seen adjacent to the White Dam intrusive body. Previous drilling to the west of these gravity anomalies had encountered calc-silicate units suggestive of active skarn development caused by this intrusive event. During February 2006, Marathon completed orientation sampling traverses and a regional soil and calcrete geochemical sampling programme on the subject ground which provided a base dataset of surface Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) partial leach assay results, obtained across a 72 square km area using a triangular grid. From this information Marathon identified a spatial relationship between anomalous base metals in the soil and previously identified magnetic and gravity features. This provided the impetus for the company in December 2006 to apply for and be granted State Government subsidy funding of $80,000 to carry out a six-hole RC drilling programme designed to test this trend at depth. During March/April 2007, Marathon Resources completed this PACE Project DPY4-63 drilling for a total penetration of 2206 m (see Env 11510). The results from the drilling conclusively tested the basement below and adjacent to the anomalous trend, but found no economically significant mineralisation. At approximately 40 m thickness, the depth of the Murray Basin cover was as expected. The mostly unconsolidated, poorly sorted sediments suggest periodic deposition in a medium to high-energy environment. It was thought that broad basal clay zones may represent (palaeo) deep weathering of the Adelaidean basement, and common maghemite-quartz rich pebble horizons suggest that at times a sub-aerial environment existed, where erosion of past lateritic soils or gossan/ironstone exposures occurred. In relation to the Adelaidean basement, the continuity, thickness and composition of the bedrock metasediments indicated that the PACE drilling probably pierced the Saddleworth Formation (or equivalent) within the Upper Burra Group. Carbonaceous muds and silts which were penetrated have been described as lying within the Saddleworth Formation elsewhere in the broader region. As well, the incidence in the drill cuttings of rare quartz pebbles/cobbles coincides with mapped very rare quartz and lithic pebbles to the south near Mintaro. These pebbles have been interpreted as possible glacial dropstones emplaced from ice-rafts. The groundwater table heights, and quantity and depths of the flows encountered in each PACE drillhole were highly variable. This was surprising, given the proximity of the drillholes to each other. Natural porosity and permeability of the bedrock slates/silts is low, so the water flows are likely to have come from late fracture zones. If not, then water must be held in bedding planes spaces and joints which would mean that folding or at least a variable dip in the bedding must exist to account for such variation in depths and volumes of water flow. Marathon interpreted that the lack of results from its Mongolata RC drilling meant that the calcrete/soil geochemical anomalism cannot be explained by leaching from a local basement source. It stated that one alternative explanation of the calcrete anomalism could be that erosion, transportation and accumulation of mineralised material has occurred along now hidden paleodrainage pathways. However, if the dispersal source is to remain related to the basement gravitational and magnetic anomalism, then it must remain relatively proximal to them and the completed drillholes. During 2007, Marathon Resources collected 24 soil samples and 7 calcrete samples for analysis. Work undertaken on the subject relinquished portion of EL 3164/4233 by Phoenix Copper, after that company purchased the licence from Marathon on 9/11/2007, has included a data review, the reprocessing and interpretation of available geophysical data, a field reconnaissance of geophysical anomalies and mapped geological units, a ground scintillometric survey, and orientation and regional soil sampling plus minor calcrete sampling. Late in 2010, Phoenix generated an interpretive solid geology map for the Mongolata area that shows inferred faults and prospective structures. During November 2010, Phoenix analysed on-site 442 (of a licence total 818) soil samples from Mongolata eastern sub-block sites visited on a nominal 20 m x 2 km spacing, using several different hand-held portable XRF devices. A results map contoured for copper is provided. During February 2011, to investigate the possible uranium potential of inferred buried Tertiary palaeochannel sediments, Phoenix obtained 161 (of a licence total 347) ground scintillometer readings over aerial radiometric anomalies. No significant surface geochemical anomalies or radiometric responses were detected. Australian Field Services had farmed into EL 3164 with Marathon on 8/10/2007, with the aim of exploring the Mongolata tenement eastern sub-block over three years for possible shallow silver-gold and/or copper sulphide occurrences. Starting in February 2008, AFS undertook shallow scout auger drilling (maximum hole depth 28 m) of 37 holes to geochemically sample weathered bedrock for gold, silver, arsenic, bismuth and copper. Later that year, it performed four dipole-dipole IP traverses totalling 5.85 line km near the centre of the sub-block, and collected 732 calcrete samples in the surrounding elevated country which were assayed for gold, silver, arsenic, bismuth, copper and antimony.