An area originally granted as Exploration Licence 3048 Pondooma, which consisted of two separate sub-blocks centred ~60 km south-west of Whyalla, was applied for to cover a poorly exposed belt of banded iron formation (BIF) strata identified on regional magnetic data, with outcrops mapped on ground adjacent to the licence at Ironstone Hill and Ironstone Hut. Regionally, the BIF beds form part of an extensive Palaeoproterozoic metasedimentary sequence belonging to the Middleback Subgroup of the Hutchison Group. Grant licensee South Australian Iron Ore Group Pty Ltd (SAG) believed that there was potential for haematite mineralisation similar to that at Iron Duke to be found on EL 3048 beneath Tertiary to Recent cover. During January 2003, a semi-detailed 400/200 m x 50 m ground gravity survey was carried out for SAG on 3 regular grids, partially infilled, over selected extensions of the BIF interpreted to lie within the northern sub-block EL 3048. A total of 1494 stations were read. Inspection of this new gravity data identified a number of weakly defined anomalies which were not followed up by drilling. Office studies of available geophysical and open file geological data were performed during 2005 to try to identify possible drilling targets. Reprocessing of historic government and company open file aeromagnetic data was done for the entire portfolio of Centrex Metals' SA exploration tenements. Data spacing and quality were variable, which led to some uncertainty in drill target selections. Consequently, in February 2007 a new airborne magnetic, radiometric and digital terrain survey was flown, in part for 420 line km acquired within renewed (but much reduced in size) EL 3999 at a line spacing of 100 m and a nominal sensor height of 50 m above the ground surface. This regional survey covered all five West Middleback region tenements, with the survey expenses and data shared between Centrex Metals and Lincoln Minerals. Full details of the 2005 reprocessing and the 2007 survey, and the survey’s data, are available from Envelope 11449. Detailed geological and structural mapping, and outcrop rock chip sampling on EL 3999, occurred during 2009-2010 as part of a larger mapping exercise addressing the entire West Middleback region. New outcrops of the Cooyerdoo Granite and many other rocks were recognised within EL 4185 adjoining the subject licence area, and follow-up PACE funded collaborative geochronology studies (results are published in Report Book 2011/00003 and discussed herein) revealed additional rocks that were over 3000 million years old. During May 2010, the iron ore - related and modal mineralogical compositions of 10 selected outcrop samples of magnetite-rich BIF, haematite-rich BIF and associated other ironstone bedrock units were determined by laboratory semi-quantitative XRF analysis. One sample was a very elongated haematite + magnetite inclusion, literally a “tectonic rod”, from a major mylonite zone, and this returned an assay value of 65.6% Fe, by far the highest iron content recorded from any rock in the project tenements. Another sample out of the eight BIF rocks collected, IH008, is the sole representative of a magnetite BIF outcrop ~170 m x ~15 m in size that lies about 3.5 km south-west of Ironstone Hill summit, and it assayed at 28.9% Fe. The remaining samples came from a single magnetite BIF outcrop, ~500 m x ~50 m in size, straddling the boundary between EL 3999 and EL 4185 about 4 km south-west of Ironstone Hill summit. The nine samples collected across the entire outcrop ranged in grade between 32.2% and 38.1% Fe. No mechanical drilling was undertaken by the JV partners within the subject licence area. A hand powered post hole digger was used to bore holes into lakebeds and regolith to ascertain thicknesses of potential detrital iron ores. These holes were backfilled immediately after their contents and layering had been examined.