The Koch Creek showing is located 200 metres from the Hoder Creek beneficiation plant on the Plant claim group, 11 kilometres northwest of the village of Passmore and 30 kilometres north of Castlegar in the Valhalla Range of the southern Selkirk Mountains.
The area is underlain by the Valhalla Metamorphic Core Complex. This high-grade metamorphic complex is defined by foliation and outwardly dipping layering and consists of amphibolite grade or higher paragneisses and pelitic schists with some calc-silicate rocks, marble and intermediate to felsic intrusive rocks.
Locally disseminated graphite is hosted in amphibolite facies calc-silicate rocks, similar to those found at the Black Crystal deposit approximately 20 kilometres to the north.
Locally, the general stratigraphy is believed to be a calc-silicate gneiss or skarn overlying a biotite-quartz-feldspar±garnet gneiss footwall. The strata strike due east and dip approximately 32 degrees to the north. A northwest-striking shallow to moderately dipping graphite-bearing unit or units occur in several locations on the property. Locally, the graphite hostrock is either siliceous with little calcium carbonate or more calcareous and lithologically similar to the calc-silicate graphite hostrock found in the Black Crystal area to the north.
Prior to 2001, no documented work had been carried out on the Plant or Mill claims, though considerable graphite exploration had been undertaken by Crystal Graphite Corporation (previously known as Industrial Mineral Park Mining Corporation) in the Black Crystal project area 13 to 20 kilometres to the north. In the late 1990s and in 2004, graphite exploration programs were also carried out on the Superior claims immediately to the north of the Plant and Mill claims. In 2001, Crystal Graphite Corporation carried out an exploration program consisting of trenching, prospecting, rudimentary geological mapping and two drill programs. Five diamond drillholes yielding 233 metres of NQ core were followed by a two-hole conventional down-the-hole hammer program, which drilled 216 metres of 6-inch drillhole with chip samples taken every 1.5 metres. Drilling took place in the Beau zone on the Plant 1 claim in the area around the plant and graphite material stockpiles. In June 2002, Crystal Graphite was granted a mining lease for the mill facilities on the Koch Creek Plant claims one and two. Crystal Graphite went bankrupt in 2006 and the Black Crystal assets were purchased by Eagle Graphite Corporation.
