The Columbia Shear occurrence is located near the 21 kilometre mark of the Rift Main logging road.

The area is underlain by rocks of the Devonian Nitinat Formation and the Upper Devonian McLaughlin Formation, which occur along the western part of a 10 kilometre belt of the Paleozoic Sicker Group, known as the Cowichan uplift. The volcanics consist of massive and pillowed basalt with minor chert and jasper. Small patches of epidote, and lesser amounts of quartz are common throughout the sequence. These rocks are steeply dipping and become younger to the west. The metamorphic grade is usually lower greenschist facies.

Locally, chloritic, intermediate volcanics with patches of orange and medium red-brown stain are cut by an irregular 3 centimetre wide band of coarse, medium and fine-grained pyrite, locally approaching massive. The average pyrite content is approximately 15 per cent by volume. A sample (545655) assayed 1088.76 parts per million copper and 1079 parts per billion silver. Another sample (545653), taken 60 metres to the north, assayed 813.8 parts per billion gold (Assessment Report 32811).

In 2011, Gold Ridge Explorations Inc. completed a regional program of litho-geochemical sampling and helicopter-borne versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) and aeromagnetic geophysical surveys, totaling 34 square kilometres, on the area as the Columbia Shear property. In 2012 and 2013, Golden Peak Minerals Inc. completed programs of geological mapping, geochemical (soil, rock and silt) sampling and a 24.35 line-kilometre ground magnetometer survey on the area. In 2017, New Point Exploration Corp. completed a program of rock, soil, silt and moss mat sampling on the area as the Columbia Shear property.