The Ranch Lake uranium occurrence lies about 5 kilometres northwest of Oliver, British Columbia and 2.75 kilometres north of the former Standard mine (082ESW091). The property was examined and evaluated by D.G. Leighton for British Newfoundland Exploration Ltd. between 1977 and 1979. Two 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 the Ranch Lake showing include laminated quartz schist or dirty quartzite, massive and laminated quartzite and minor limestone of the Kobau Group. At the Ranch Lake showing area, the Oliver plutonic complex is composed almost entirely of porphyritic biotite quartz monzonite intermixed with hornblende diorite. 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 Ranch Lake uranium showing is a postglacial, lacustrine- playa cyclically-closed basin with uranium enrichment of the soils. Topography and evaporation are the dominant depositional controls under alkaline conditions. A 12,000-square metre area contains a 2.5-metre thick layer averaging 0.0186 per cent uranium and a maximum uranium concentration of 0.030 per cent over a 0.5-metre interval (Culbert, 1979).