In 1996, water-well rotary drilling was undertaken to assess the groundwater capacity of the Cats claim area for future residential development and to simultaneously test for mineral potential. Access to the property from Highway 97 is westward via 7th Avenue in Oliver and then approximately 2.5 kilometres along the Fairview Road.

The property area is underlain by Carboniferous-Permian Kobau Group sedimentary rocks including quartzite, phyllite, schist, marble and greenstone. These are intruded by weakly foliated granite and granodiorite plutons (Jurassic Oliver Plutonic Complex and Jurassic-Cretaceous Fairview intrusion). The entire sequence is cut by numerous quartz veins and stockworks. Typically these veins trend northwesterly concordant with the regional foliation, and dip northeasterly. Historically, it is known that some of the quartz veins are auriferous.

Two lithotypes were dominantly intersected in the two water-well drillholes. These are white to creamy to light green-grey, calcareous quartzite with up to 10 per cent chloritized mafic inclusions (siliceous/silicified? marble) and dark grey, locally carbonaceous phyllite. A coarser variety of the latter was identified as quartz-biotite to quartz-biotite-chlorite schist. Pyrite, trace to 1 per cent, is ubiquitous in both lithologies and occurs as fine, rusty specks, disseminations and coarse euhedral grains. Four samples in drillhole 2 contain anomalous concentrations of gold and occur between 18.9 to 37.8 metres and range from 35 to 515 ppb. Anomalous gold values are also encountered in drillhole 3; gold values from 65 to 135 ppb are found between 57.9 and 85.9 metres (Assessment Report 25005).

An exploration rotary drilling and sampling program was undertaken on the claims for D.C. Hogg in May, 1996. A total of 259 metres was drilled at two water-well sites and 36 rock chip samples were sent for geochemical analysis.