The Sterling showing is located on the north side of Ymir Creek, 7 kilometres northeast of Ymir. The property was worked intermittently up to 1912. Workings consist of 137 metres of tunnels and several opencuts and pits.

The area is underlain by granodiorite of the Nelson batholith of the Late to Middle Jurassic Nelson Intrusions. Roof pendants of Lower Jurassic Ymir Group metasediments occur in the batholith.

Pyrite, sphalerite, and galena in quartz gangue with minor calcite occurs in a vein in a strongly sheared zone within a raft or roof pendant of metasediments. The vein is hosted in, and is parallel to, schist. The shear zone strikes 010 to 015 degrees and dips 060 degrees east to vertical. The zone is crosscut by a series of parallel lamprophyre dykes striking 283 degrees.

A fault zone contains a well developed, 1-metre wide gouge zone containing graphitic, decomposed schist with pyrite, calcite, and clay. Stringers of quartz are present in the footwall rocks of the shear and some stringers contain blue quartz with sulphides.

The Sterling vein is similar to the Whynot (082FSW076) and Roanoke (082FSW071) veins.