An area of open ground encompassing the historic Mount Gunson mining district on the Stuart Shelf and three existing mining leases was taken up by David Clarke to explore for possible economic copper-cobalt mineralisation and any other precious or valuable trace metallic minerals present in the Adelaidean cover or the underlying older Proterozoic rocks. Previously found base metal mineralisation within Late Proterozoic metasediments of the region has been characterised as either sandstone/sandstone breccia or black shale hosted, and is thought to be subject to both stratigraphic and tectonic lineament controls. The known mineralisation is concentrated at disconformities, and all past discoveries were made by drilling surface indications of mineralisation or to trace sub-horizontal disconformities, although IP appears capable of detecting some zones of mineralisation. An appraisal of old aeromagnetic data confirmed the proximity of mineralisation to lineaments and/or steep magnetic gradients. Following the conduct of a review of past mining records, and the geological re-interpretation of drillhole data obtained by previous explorers, the following field work was undertaken during Year 1 of tenure: - RC drilling at 8 prospects, with 157 vertical holes completed for a total penetration of 10,524 m; - RAB drilling at 2 other prospects, with 52 vertical holes completed for 406 m; - the acquisition of infill coverage to the SAEI Area B15 aerial magnetic/radiometric survey, which was completed during April-June 1995 as the Area B17 survey managed by the South Australian Government (Cobalt Resources' funding contribution was for ~8200 line km flown across EL 1946 at 400 m line spacing and 80 m mean sensor height). The new drilling defined additional mineralisation at three prospects (Windabout, Cattle Grid South and Sweet Nell), was inconclusive at two prospects (Lake Windabout and Birthday), and failed to locate any significant new mineralisation at four prospects (Gully, Canegrass, North Boundary Lake and West Lagoon). The 43 shallow RAB drillholes for 360.3 m that were put into the CSR Mount Gunson tailings dams generally confirmed the tenor of this low grade resource, previously determined as ~7.2 Mt of sands grading on average 0.14% Cu and 0.014% Co. From the initial appraisal drilling results, it was decided to concentrate attention on the Windabout and MG14 deposits, which appeared to contain the most promising readily accessible copper-cobalt mineralisation. The Windabout orebody is a potentially economic one, with an indicated resource of 10.3 Mt grading 1.8% copper equivalent at a 1% Cu cut-off. Here the ore zone occurs at the top of the Tapley Hill Formation, and is typically 2.5-3 m thick, lying beneath ~70 m thick sedimentary cover. The copper and cobalt contents in the ore, which largely comprises fine-grained bornite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite and carrollite, plus lesser sphalerite and pyrite and trace galena, represent about equal value components. Silver credits present in the ore are typically around 10 g/t Ag. Early in 1995, Cobalt Resources commenced feasibility studies on the economic viability of the Windabout resource. In August 1995, the company formally acquired the MG14 copper-cobalt-silver deposit on ML 5694 from Mount Gunson Mines, as this deposit is located only about 5 km south of the Windabout deposit. Diamond drilling was begun at both deposits to obtain core samples necessary for performing advanced metallurgical testwork and to permit a geotechnical assessment of both resources. During the second licence year, to satisfy the aforesaid need for complete, undisturbed drill core that could be geotechnically assessed, 8 diamond drillholes were completed at Windabout for 718.8 m of HQ coring (CW1 - CW8), while 4 diamond holes were completed at MG14 for 136.4 m of HQ coring (CMG1 - CMG4), and another 3 diamond holes were completed at Sweet Nell for 32.4 m cored (CSN1 - CSN4). In addition, considerable other appraisal RC drilling and bottomhole coring was performed, mostly to investigate Windabout, where 31 RC holes for 2262.3 m (LW199 - LW229) formed a direct continuation of the previous year's campaign. These holes helped to further define the extent of copper mineralisation and of the host Tapley Hill Formation, and allowed the production of an updated Indicated Mineral Resource estimate (11.7 Mt @ 1% Cu and 0.06% Co, using a 0.5% Cu cutoff). A second drilling campaign at Windabout was attempted that was planned to involve much core drilling, but poor initial core recoveries due to the friable nature of the host rock necessitated that the majority of the drilling had to be done using RC methods. 57 RC holes (LW230 - LW286) were completed for 3820 m, plus an additional 139.6 m of NQ coring to cover mineralised intervals. Other RC drilling was done at the MG14 prospect (7 holes for 216.5 m, name-prefixed MGRC) plus 3 more diamond holes there for 96 m, prefixed CMG, which extended the geotechnical core set. Late in 1995, a first pass interpretation of Cobalt Resources' 1995 SAEI infill airborne magnetic survey data was performed for Stuart Metals by geophysical consultant David Isles, using depth slice data processing and Reduction-to-the-Pole (RTP) imaging. The intent was to delineate shallow (0-300 m deep) structures known to partly manifest locally in the distribution of younger dyke sets, and also to delineate the bedrock surface which appeared to frequently control localisation of base metals, whilst at the same time minimising the interfering magnetic effects of the Gairdner Dyke Swarm. During the third licence year, new activities comprised: - making a detailed interpretation of all airborne geophysical data; - performing an orientation soil calcrete geochemical survey and participating in more detailed calcrete sampling as part of a regional programme being conducted by CRC-LEME; and - commencing a pilot study of hydrogeochemistry. Several promising conceptual targets for Mount Gunson style base metals and for structurally located gold plays were identified by the geophysical consultant, but he stated that the project area's geophysical data is generally very complex and difficult to interpret, a major problem being the very poorly known geology of the older, pre - Pandurra Formation basement rocks. He said that most of the obvious anomalies had been drilled by previous explorers, but their holes may often have been stopped short of explaining the anomaly sources, which in many cases may not be the Gawler Range Volcanics or the Roopena Volcanics, but instead are likely to be older Proterozoic intrusions, breccias or altered rocks lying beneath 400-500 m thickness of younger sediments and volcanic units. The orientation soil calcrete geochemical survey was conducted early in 1997, with a total of 59 surface samples collected both at 100 m or 200 m intervals on detailed lines over known mineralisation (MG14, Windabout, Elizabeth Creek) and at 800 m intervals along a more regional traverse. An additional 3 samples were taken from selected drill cores from Windabout and MG14. A lot of information was logged about the physical nature of the calcrete profiles sampled, and assays were obtained for a representative nineteen element suite. No strong trace metal anomalies were recorded, the peak assay values being 6 ppb Au and 53 ppm Cu in separate samples: the lack of a strong response over areas of known copper mineralisation was disappointing. Nevertheless, an expert's review of the orientation dataset discerned sufficient variability within it to justify proceeding further with a major regional calcrete geochemical sampling programme. This was begun after April 1997, when 1134 calcrete samples were collected on a 1.6 km x 800 m grid covering ~80% of the subject EL 1946, to form part of a larger sample set collected across the three Mount Gunson Project licence areas. As a recommended adjunct to the calcrete sampling, hydrogeochemical sampling of local groundwater was trialled in late June 1997, with 22 water samples taken from various water wells and exploration boreholes. These samples were analysed by the CSIRO using specialist techniques having low detection limits, measuring concentrations of a wide range of dissolved elements plus overall salinity and pH value. Just prior to commencement of the orientation calcrete sampling survey, Stuart Metals was approached by Mel Lintern of CRC-LEME and was invited to participate in detailed regolith research being done at a range of sites in South Australia displaying different surficial geology and weathering regimes. For the Mount Gunson region, it was agreed through negotiation that Stuart Metals would fund specific research into the development of the local calcrete profile. The programme was to consist of the collection of ~50 samples, with analysis of them to be done by the CSIRO in Perth, WA, and the interpretive documentation was to be prepared by a CRC-LEME group based at MESA in Adelaide, working under the direction of Dr Lintern. Weathered soil profiles in the walls of the abandoned Cattlegrid mine open pit were studied and sampled, and other sampling trenches were dug at the Windabout prospect. During the fourth licence year, the work performed was as follows: - completion of the regional calcrete geochemical sampling programme, via 800 m x 400 m infill sampling (1732 samples) of coherent trace metal anomalies revealed by the earlier sampling phases; - acting on the recommendation of the consultant geochemist, doing detailed, 200 m x 200 m grid-based soil sampling over five areas of anomalous calcrete geochemistry during February-May 1998, to collect a total of 2256 samples for partial leach assaying; - prior to the above work, conducting an orientation programme of soil sampling, with 118 samples collected along six traverses 400 m apart, that were submitted for partial digest trace analysis of pathfinder elements to provide data to compare against the calcrete response seen from infill sampling done at the same precision. The soil results gave enhanced contrast of anomalies against background; - continuing the interpretation of geophysical data, with a focus on the Elizabeth Creek area. A residual gravity high of amplitude 1.0 to 1.5 mGal was recognised in the Lunar Dam - Bottle Hill vicinity. Better definition was given to the NNE trending Cattlegrid Fault, which appeared to form the western margin of the Elizabeth Creek basement high; - relogging and sampling of stored drillhole materials from selected holes in the Elizabeth Creek area. The previously untested (for gold and silver) pre-Pandurra Formation drill core intervals in holes PY6 and EC47 were sampled and assayed for Au, Ag and As, and a peak gold value of 40 ppb Au was obtained within the altered granitoid basement of EC47, which is located close to the Lunar Dam prospect; - continuing to sample groundwaters from existing drillholes to inform the hydrogeochemistry study (44 additional samples analysed); and - making plans for and preparing to conduct ground geophysical surveys for outlining drill targets. A final report on the joint project managed by CRC-LEME to investigate calcrete at Mount Gunson was received in February 1998, and is included as an appendix [indexed separately].