The LaRonde property is located in the southern portion of the Archean-age Abitibi volcanic belt, within the Bousquet Formation of the Blake River Group of volcanic rocks. The rock units strike east-west, dip steeply to the south and generally face southward.

The southernmost unit of the Bousquet Formation, which hosts the significant gold and base metal mineralization on the LaRonde property, varies in thickness from 150 metres to over 550 metres. The unit is characterized by the dominance of quartz- and feldspar-porphyritic rhyodacite to rhyolite flows and pyroclastic rocks. The LaRonde deposits occur along the eastern extremity of the east-west-trending Doyon-Dumagami deformation zone, also called the Doyon-Bousquet-LaRonde (DBL) mining camp. The DBL mining camp also includes the Mouska, Doyon, Bousquet I and Bousquet II gold deposits located west of LaRonde. The Cadillac Sedimentary Group occurs to the south. The most important regional structure is the Cadillac-Larder Lake fault zone, located approximately 2 kilometres south of the LaRonde property.

Deposits

Gold-copper and zinc-silver mineralization occurs in the form of massive and disseminated sulphide lenses that vary in size and occur throughout the southern felsic unit of the Blake River Group. Five different mineralized horizons are known to exist adjacent to the Penna Shaft:

• The Zones 6 and 7 horizons have hosted 1- to 2-million-tonne, gold-bearing, polymetallic massive sulphide lenses.
• The 20 North Gold and Zinc zones are two parallel and adjacent lenses of disseminated to massive sulphides up to 25 metres in thickness and up to 22 million tonnes in size. Gold-copper mineralization occurs in the northern lens, and zinc-silver mineralization occurs immediately to the south. Deep drilling for Zone 20 North has confirmed that both the gold-copper grade and the thickness increase at depth.
• Two separate 1- to 2-million-tonne lenses of Zone 20 South were discovered and mined along the southernmost gold-bearing, polymetallic, disseminated to massive sulphide horizon that has been found on the property. The 20 South horizons occur less than 30 metres north of the Cadillac Group sediments.