The Columbia occurrence is located near the mouth of Tenderfoot Creek in the Slocan Mining Division.

Regionally, the area lies within the Selkirk Mountains of southeastern British Columbia. The occurrence is within the Kootenay Arc, a curving belt of highly deformed metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks which includes the Upper Proterozoic Horsethief Creek Group, the Upper Proterozoic to Lower Cambrian Hamill Group, the Lower Cambrian Badshot Formation, and the Paleozoic Lardeau and Milford groups. The volcano-sedimentary sequence is intruded by numerous Paleozoic to Mesozoic granitoid plutons.

The Lardeau River area of the Selkirk Mountains is mainly underlain by massive pillow lavas, volcanic breccia and green phyllitic rocks of the Index Formation and by grey-green mica schist of the Broadview Formation. Grey phyllitic rocks and marble of the Milford Group are exposed near the edges of the Mesozoic Mobbs Creek, Rapid Creek and Poplar Creek stocks. All rocks have undergone regional metamorphism to middle or upper greenschist facies. Rocks of the Milford Group have also been affected by thermal metamorphism (Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 193).

The Columbia showing consists of a single quartz vein, up to 20 centimetres wide, mineralized with minor sphalerite and galena. The vein strikes southeast and dips 45 degrees southwest. It is hosted within sheared phyllitic rocks of the Index Formation of the Lardeau Group. The vein has been explored with a shallow incline shaft and surface trenching. A grab sample assayed 21.8 per cent zinc, 2.37 per cent lead and 59 grams per tonne silver (Property File - Prospectus, Progressive Minerals Ltd., 1987).