At Sunrise Dam, gold mineralisation is structurally controlled and vein hosted. The style of mineralisation can be differentiated depending on the structure or environment in which it is hosted. There are three dominant styles recognised:

• shear-related and high strain, e.g. Sunrise Shear Zone

• stockwork development in planar faults with brittle characteristics (these occur in all rock types and are commonly concentrated at contacts within the volcanic stratigraphy or the porphyry margin and within hinge positions within the magnetite shales) e.g. Western Shear Zone, Watu, Cosmo, Summercloud

• placer-style mineralisation hosted within the fluvial sediments

Mineralisation is typically hosted in quartz carbonate veins and breccias with varying quantities of pyrite and arsenopyrite. Gold occurs as free gold and is also occulded in the sulphides. The gold mineralisation is often associated with strongly altered country rocks proximal to the shear and fracture network that the hydrothermal fluids have passed through.

Open pit production began in 1997 and has now been completed at a final depth of 500m below surface. Underground mining commenced in 2003 with a number of different mining methods being applied, depending on the style of mineralisation and grade of the geological domain.

Mining is carried out by contractors. The primary mining method is bulk mechanised sub-level open stoping using stabilising pillars and waste back fill where possible.

Ore, which is sourced from open pit and underground mine, is trucked to a run of mine (ROM) pad, prior to being blended and fed to the process plant. Milled ore is treated using a Carbon in Leach (CIL) process that involves the use of sodium cyanide to leach gold from the ore into solution, which is then recovered using carbon adsorption methods. The barren "tailings" slurry from the CIL is pumped to a tails thickener. The tails thickener underflow is pumped to a Central Thickened Discharge (CTD) storage facility at a density of 68% solids, with overflow water returning to the process.

The operation uses 30% w/v liquid cyanide which is transported by rail from the suppliers production facility (located at Kwinana some 40 km south of Perth within the state of Western Australia), to a trans-shipping facility at Kalgoorlie, where it is then transported by road to the SDGM site. Solid cyanide is not transported to, stored, mixed or used at the operation.