The South Wow Lake uranium occurrence lies about 3.75 kilometres northwest of Oliver, British Columbia and 1 kilometre north of the former Standard mine (082ESW091). The property was examined and evaluated by D.G. Leighton for British Newfoundland Exploration Ltd. from 1977 to 1979. A total of 98 augerholes were drilled into unconsolidated sediments.

Regionally, the area is principally underlain by medium grained intrusive rocks that form the Jurassic Oliver plutonic complex. To the immediate south, the complex cuts Carboniferous to Permian Kobau Group metasedimentary rocks. On its northern margin, the intrusive mass is in contact with Eocene volcanics and sediments of the Penticton Group. The Kettle River Formation, consisting of conglomerate, arkose and rhyolite tuff, is overlain by the Springbrook and Marron formations.

Bedrock types to the south of South Wow Lake include laminated quartz schist or dirty quartzite, massive and laminated quartzite and minor limestone of the Kobau Group. In the South Wow Lake area, the Oliver plutonic complex is composed almost entirely of biotite- hornblende quartz monzonite. The southern contact with the Kobau Group is approximately 2.5 kilometres to the south of the Wow Lakes. Three distinct phases have been identified. From youngest to oldest these are: a central core of massive medium-grained garnet-muscovite quartz monzonite which is surrounded by porphyritic biotite quartz monzonite to the south and biotite-hornblende quartz monzonite north of the core. Hornblende diorite occurs in several small areas to the north. Border phases and dikes related to the Oliver plutonic complex include lamprophyre, augite-plagioclase porphyritic andesite, micro-quartz diorite, albite porphyritic dacite, diabase, fine-grained quartz monzonite and aplite. Bedrock uranium mineralization consists of pegmatite accumulations, uraniferous limestone, uranium-pyrrhotite and fracture-hosted uranium (Assessment Report 7398). The latter are common in the Wow Lakes area.

The Wow Lakes (see also North Wow, 082ESW177) lie along a north-northeast trending linear which separates muscovite-garnet quartz monzonite to the east from porphyritic biotite quartz monzonite to the west. To the immediate north, a narrow transitional zone along the linear consists of porphyritic muscovite-biotite quartz monzonite. High radioactivity (up to 1000 counts per second on a SPP2 NF scintillometer) is associated with the contact zone of the latest two phases of the plutonic complex.

The South Wow Lake occurrence is a postglacial, lacustrine- lava, closed basin type of deposit which is forming within a few metres of the surface by enrichment of uranium and other elements by evaporative pumping. The uranium is concentrated in clays as a salt from saline oxidizing groundwaters in an arid environment in the deposit. No uranium minerals have been recognized. The underlying rocks are sources of labile uranium with possible contributions from mineralized fault zones. However, this is one type of young uranium deposit that can be detected by gamma ray spectrometry.

The deposit has been drilled with 98 augerholes, outlining a 17,500-square metre deposit approximately 1 metre thick (Culbert, 1979). The average uranium concentration was 0.036 per cent, with a maximum value of 0.080 per cent uranium over a one-half metre section (Culbert, 1979).