The area surrounding the Sonshi mine is covered with laterite capping underlain by lumpy ore zone. The ore deposit at the Sonshi mine forms the northern limb of the northwest-southeast trending syncline. The formations dip 50 degrees to 60 degrees northeast. The principal deposit of the Sonshi mine comprises three distinct ore bodies that are folded into a syncline. The youngest ore body has a width of 50 metres, while the other ore bodies dip steeply to the northeast and have widths of approximately 20 metres to 25 metres. The intervening parting between the ore bodies comprised 50 metres of manganiferous clay and a 30 metre wide limonitic zone separating one ore body from the footwall phyllite. The depth extent of these bands has been outlined with deep drilling. Hematite is the major economic mineral in each of the bands.

The open-pit mining operations at the Sonshi mine are fully mechanised. The hard laterite capping is loosened either by drilling, blasting or ripping/dozing. The soft sub-lateritic zone is excavated and transported to respective laterite, clay and ore stacks.

The material from Sonshi mine is reloaded into smaller 10-tonne trucks and transported to the plants for processing and beneficiation, which involves crushing, scrubbing, log washing, classifying, double stage cycloning and thickening. The waste is transported to a dump stockpile six to seven km away. The processed ore is transported to the Amona jetty, loaded in barges and sent to Mormugao port approximately 35 nautical miles away.

There was no processing plant on-site. The extracted ore was transported by a fleet of contractors with 10-tonne trucks to the processing plants at Amona (approximately nine km away) and at Cudnem (approximately six km away). The combined throughput capacity of the processing plants was 8.4 mmtpa till the date of order of Supreme Court of India to discontinue the mining operations. The plants underwent regular maintenance and annual repairs are carried out during the monsoon season.