The Cononish deposit is hosted in a meta-sedimentary sequence of schists, pelites, quartzites, psammites and calcareous rocks of the Appin and Argyll Groups belonging to the Dalradian Supergroup.

The gold and silver mineralisation occurs within a steeply-dipping quartz vein which is up to 8.3m wide and has an average width of about 1.8m.

The vein system was emplaced during the late to post-tectonic late Silurian to early Devonian episode of granitoid intrusion in the Grampian Highlands. It shows both brittle and ductile style deformation and completely postdates metamorphism and associated Caledonian foliations. Quartz veining is associated with the Tyndrum Fault, one of a set of northeast southwest trending, left lateral, faults characterizing the Scottish Highlands.

Gold occurs as electrum (a natural gold / silver alloy) and some minor amounts of native (pure) gold; silver occurs additionally as minor tellurides. The gold/electrum is fine-grained, generally <100 µm in size. Visible gold up to 1,000 µm to 2,000 µm in size is rare. Assay data suggests that gold and silver is spatially associated with sulphides in the quartz vein. The main sulphide is pyrite, but galena, chalcopyrite and sphalerite occur in small amounts.

Although the vein outcrops on surface in limited areas, this will not be exposed by mining and little weathering and no supergene alteration has been encountered to date.

The mining method selected is sub level open stoping on retreat. This particular method has been employed as it reduces the amount of mine rock developed to access the ore by driving extraction drives / tunnels on the vein. Mine rock is generated by the spiral ramp used to gain elevation in the resource. Mine rock not scheduled for immediate construction use in the TSF stacks will be stored in underground voids.

The mine portal will be slightly enlarged. All finishes will be either in, or surfaced with natural rock.

The primary means of access being the existing adit and exploration drive on 400 m elevation. In order to reduce the amount of waste development required in the early years of mining the development layout has been revised. The following changes have been made:
- Access to the 415 m Level in Block 1 is gained via a ramp in ore, from the 400 m Level exploration drive.
- The footwall drive on 400 m level, West of the central Ramp (to the upper levels) breakaway, has been removed. The stopes will be sequenced in retreat so that access via a footwall drive is no longer required.
- The breakaway position for the Ramp to Block 9 (Lower Ramp West) has been moved to the East, to the “horseshoe” bend in the exploration drive. This allows the footwall drive West, described above, to be removed.

Current activities are focussed on enlarging of the exiting adit over a distance of 900m to accommodate the new larger mining equipment that has been adopted. The adit will then be extended a further 75 metres to the boundary of the currently estimated Ore Reserves, defined by the interpreted position of a geological fault. Ramps, up and down, will be mined to access reserves delineated some 160m above and 80m below the 400m level, with drill drives (or sub-levels) excavated on vein to the extremities of the Ore Reserve. These drill drives will be joined vertically by a series of raises, some of which will function as ore passes, while some will be used as airways and travelling ways between the levels. Slot raises will also be mined to demarcate the individual stopes and also serve as initial breaking faces for stoping.

Currently development ore, and ultimately stoping or, will be loaded by a Load Haul Dump machine (LHD or “scooptram”) into a dump truck and brought out of the mine via the 400 level access, where it will be stacked on surface prior to processing.

Processing plant will be entirely within the plant building and consists of a ‘grizzley’ screen, jaw crusher, granulator (second jaw crusher), ball mill (wet process) and two separate separation processes, a gravity separation process and a froth flotation process to produce a gold bearing sulphide concentrate. Additionally, there will be a filter-press (dewatering plant) to dewater the residue from this process which is known as tailings.

Gold extracted by gravity separation will be further processed in the small onsite furnace. The concentrate, once pressed, dried and bagged, will require further off-site processing.

The concentrate will be transported from the site in 1.5 tonne bulk bags by a 7.5- 18 tonne commercial vehicle to a suitable container loading site and shipped in 28 tonne containers either by road or road/sea to Europe to a multi-metal smelting facility.