Broad sample spacing of 800m fortuitously "snagged" the sub-surface orebody with a single high gold in calcrete value attracting almost immediate follow-up.

Activities stopped during the late 1990s while Dominion negotiated to buy back Resolute's share of the project and then find another Joint-venture partner.

The Challenger deposit is located within portions of Christie gneiss, a member of the Mulgathing Complex that forms part of the Gawler Craton, a large crystalline basement province consisting of late Archaean to Mesoproterozic rocks that became stabilised by around 1,450 Ma.

The deposit is typically shear hosted with the morphology of the mineralised envelope being lensoid in three dimensions and anastomosing in character.

Coarse visible gold of variable size and in association with sulphide mineralisation is a common feature of the higher grade ore zones.

Both primary host rock and the quartz, feldspar, garnet veins associated with gold mineralisation are generally competent, necessitating minimal ground support.

The infrastructure covers an area of approximately 300 hectares (740 acres) and includes the processing plant, a mine village housing up to 140 personnel working a fly-in /fly-out roster, aerodrome, reagent and fuel storage facilities, offices, workshops, a laboratory, ancillary buildings and haul roads.

The site is either accessed by a nine-hour drive along sealed and unsealed roads or by Air which takes approximately 1.5 hours by plane from Adelaide.