The prospectivity of the eastern part of the Gawler Craton for Mesoproterozoic age Olympic Dam style copper-gold-uranium mineralization has been a major exploration target since the 1970s.  Dominion commenced gold exploration in the western part of the Gawler Craton District in 1992, well ahead of subsequent industry interest in the area.  The discovery of the Challenger gold deposit in 1995, using the then innovative calcrete geochemistry technique, demonstrated the prospectivity of the Archaean geology for gold mineralization.  More recently the prospectivity for world class heavy mineral sands (HMS) within the Eucla Basin sediments has also been demonstrated, in particular by Iluka’s discovery of the Ambrosia and Jacinth deposits.

Most of the extensive tenement package, acquired by Dominion in the early – mid 1990s, has been retained.  The current package, can be divided into 3 groups, the Central Tenements Area (CTA), centered on the Challenger Gold Deposit, where the bedrock is of Archaean age, the Labyrinth and Bulgunnia Project tenements, located in the eastern part of the Gawler Craton, where Proterozoic age geology is dominant, and the Maralinga JV (Barton) tenements where the economic potential is related both to Archaean bedrock and also to the development of the overlying Eucla Basin sediments.