An area located on the eastern margin of the Eucla Basin, and centred ~60 km north-east of Fowlers Bay, has now been taken under licence by WA-based company Iluka Resources to explore for possible buried economic occurrences of zircon-rich heavy mineral sands (HMS) that may have been formed along palaeo-beach and shoreface strandlines during the five marine incursions that occurred from the Middle Eocene to the Pliocene. Winnowed sandy sediment horizons of the Hampton Sandstone and Ooldea Formation are the target host strata for mineral sands deposits. Work undertaken by previous explorers between the mid-1980s and early 1990s addressed these targets, but with only limited drilling success, when National Mineral Sands were able to outline a small resource named the Immarna deposit, that contains two zones of HMS mineralisation that were thought to represent two different ages of deposition. Tenure here was later allowed to expire due to perceived factors of the depth of overburden, lack of concentrated mineralisation, and low rutile content in the sampled HMS. Parts of the subject licence lie within the Yellabinna Regional Reserve, which is 2.5 million ha of bushland representing a remnant 17% of the total South Australian Mallee vegetation cover that existed at the time of colonial settlement. Yellabinna’s remoteness and almost pristine condition give it very high wilderness value. During the first licence year, a regional HMS exploration drilling programme was conducted between September and November 2004, when 29 vertical aircore/RC NQ open holes were drilled along four traverses spaced 10 km apart, for a total penetration of 1545 m. The traverses were aligned in a NE-SW direction across the south-eastern part of the Ooldea Range. Drillholes were collared at 400 m intervals along the traverses, with infill holes positioned to define any mineralisation. Sampling of the holes occurred at 1.5 m depth intervals, with a representative 1 to 1.5 kg split of the recovered drill cuttings taken by rotary splitter to submit for laboratory heavy mineral analysis. All samples were panned and were lithologically logged on site by a geologist. The ease with which clays were liberated from a sample was logged on a scale of very easy to impossible, and the percentage of clay (“slimes”) was also recorded. The presence and type of cemented fragments (“rock”) was recorded, with an estimate of percentage. The ease with which the drill bit penetrated the ground was recorded on a scale of 1 to 5 (“hardness”). Sediment colour, dominant grain size, max grain size and degree of sorting were also recorded. All hole collar positions were surveyed by GPS. No significant HMS mineralisation was encountered by the 2004 exploratory drilling, with only thin strandline horizons containing 0.5% HM content were sampled at 1.5 metre depth intervals for heavy mineral analysis. In general, the HM mineralised intercepts were low grade, around 1% HM, with an average thickness of <3 m. the best intercept made was 6 m @ 3% HM in hole YE2609.