245 square km or ~56.2% of the original area of EL 4496, in a single sub-block comprising its western part, has been relinquished because it lies within the Yellabinna Regional Reserve, a sensitive environmental conservation park located in sandy desert wilderness country with a lack of internal tracks and many other issues that affect access. The licence area, which is centred ~15 km south of Tarcoola, is being explored for possible buried nickel and gold mineralisation. Within the relinquished area, Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) surface geochemical sampling plus biogeochemical sampling and sample laboratory analyses were performed, with a total of 126 MMI and 312 biogeochemical samples collected. This surface geochemistry program was part of a collaborative research project established between Endeavour Discoveries Limited and The University of Adelaide to test plant biogeochemistry over varying regolith terrains (aeolian sand dunes, alluvial/colluvial cover, and residual saprolite). Endeavour Copper Gold had hoped to be able to use the MMI and vegetation sampling to vector towards otherwise hidden drill targets. However, it has since been concluded that surface geochemistry (vegetation being the better) combined with detailed regolith studies can be only partially successful in areas of variable shallow cover. In other words, drill testing to establish the true subsurface situation is required and only in limited areas is surface geochemistry useful. Vegetation seemed to “penetrate” a little better and be quicker and easier to collect. MMI was inconclusive and its assay data should be disregarded, because in doing it we failed to localise the sample collection technique to adjust for the low % of fines.