The Shorts Creek showing is located 28 kilometres west-southwest of Vernon, on the steep north slopes of Shorts Creek.

In this area, Middle Jurassic granite intrudes Devonian to Triassic sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Harper Ranch Group. A major graben-like Eocene basin of Penticton Group volcanic and sedimentary rocks extends north-south across Shorts Creek.

A 30 to 60-metre thick basal conglomeratic unit of the Penticton Group hosts an impure bituminous coal seam. The coal-bearing beds, striking 100 degrees and dipping 20 degrees north, are about 30 metres above the base of the sediments. The coal occurs as narrow beds intercalated with thin layers of shale and can be traced for about 1 kilometre on surface, averaging about 1.5 metres thick.

The first reference to this occurrence is from 1905. By 1932, a 24-metre shaft and a 12-metre tunnel had been completed.