Geologically, the area is underlain by the folded Meguma Group, an assemblage of sedimentary rocks called turbidites of the northern Appalachians. The ore deposit at the Dufferin Mine and other properties of the project consists of stratabound gold-bearing quartz veins folded in echelon mainly located in anticline. The Dufferin Mine deposit occurs in a "saddle-reef-vein" type gold deposit in the crest and limbs along an Anticline.

Similarities between the saddle-vein deposits in Nova Scotia to those of the Bendigo - Castlemaine goldfields of the State of Victoria, Australia have been noted by numerous writers. The Bendigo Gold field have been mined for more than a kilometre in depth and over 10 kilometres along strike covering five parallels anticlines in width.

On Dufferin Mine property, parallel anticlinal fold axes have not been explored, nor have the fold axes of the adjacent synclinal folds. The target anticline at Ecum Secum property, containing gold-bearing quartz veins, has been followed over a length of 300 metres and down to a depth of about 50 metres. On Miller Lake property, more than six gold-bearing veins from a few centimetres to 30 cm thick have previously been identified and partially mined, one of them 1,097 metres in length. Three principal mineralized sites on the property were mined from shafts and tunnels in the early 20th century: the shafts went no deeper than 32 metres.