South-east Cameroon lies within a region of metamorphosed Archaean and Proterozoic rocks ranging in age from 600 to 2,500 million years and extending across much of west-central Africa. In south-east Cameroon, several assemblages of such metamorphic rocks occur. Large areas of mineralized laterite, some of which are several tens of square kilometres in extent, have been preserved on low-relief plateaux underlain by ultramafic rocks. The Cameroon laterite profiles show a strong vertical zonation, which reflects the transition from unweathered host rock at the base, to highly leached residues at the surface. The Cameroon laterites possess two layers of iron-rich laterite, between which lies ferricrete breccia. The portion of the profile under the breccia includes limonitic ferralite and underlying saprolite units that are more typical of humid tropical laterite profiles.

The lateritic mineralization is the dominant style of economic mineralization in the Lomie region. The laterites formed over ultramafic and mafic bodies are unusual in terms of mineralogy as all the cobalt, approximately half the nickel and nearly all the manganese is contained in the mineral asbolite. Asbolite is a relatively hard mineral that is uniquely coarse in these particular deposits.

The nickeliferous laterite deposits of south-east Cameroon were first discovered and investigated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) during 1981-1986, in a cooperative project with the Cameroon Ministry of Mines, Water and Energy to evaluate mineral potential in south eastern Cameroon. Following a regional stream sediment geochemical survey that indicated the likely presence of laterite nickel mineralization, the UNDP project drilled eleven core holes in the Nkamouna area. Several of the UNDP holes intersected laterite and saprolite with interesting nickel and cobalt values. The first borehole intersected 56m of laterite and fresh serpentinite, that contained nickel values up to 1% and cobalt values up to 0.19%. Due to the remote location and the low nickel prices then prevailing, the discovery did not draw much attention at that time.

The geology of the SE region of Cameroon is poorly understood and the region has not previously been explored using modern airborne exploration techniques.