Most of the gold mined in the Super Pit occurs within ore lodes formed by ancient shears in a rock unit called the Golden Mile Dolerite. There are over 2,000 ore lodes that occur within the Golden Mile dolerite are found in an area over 5 kilometres in strike and 2 kilometres in width and occur to a depth of over 1 kilometre.

The ore lodes varying in size from centimetres up to several hundred metres in length and dip. All of the lodes that can be economically mined from the Super Pit must be greater than 10 metres in length and 6 metres in width.