The Bethlehem (Iona) property lies within the Early Jurassic- Late Triassic Guichon Creek batholith and straddles an intrusive contact where younger Bethlehem phase quartz diorite and granodiorite forms an irregular embayment in older Guichon variety granodiorite. Igneous breccias are believed to have been forcefully emplaced. The granodiorites and breccias are intruded by north trending, steeply dipping dacite porphyry and porphyritic quartz latite dykes up to 60 metres in width.

The ore deposits are controlled by intrusive contacts, faulting and fracturing. The Iona deposit is cut by several northwest to northeast trending faults and is highly fractured.

The deposit is mostly confined to a north trending pear-shaped breccia zone. The breccia pipe contains vugs, mushrooms near the surface, narrows with depth, and contains fragments of most major rock types found on the property. The mineralization consists mainly of bornite and chalcopyrite in varying ratios, along with minor amounts of molybdenite and chalcocite. The deposit contains an extensive oxide zone which reaches a depth of 60 metres. Malachite is the most common oxidation product. Hydrothermal alteration, similar to the other Bethlehem deposits, consists of sericite, kaolinite, quartz and epidote. An age date from a sample of a mixture of magmatic and hydrothermal biotite returned 199 Ma +/- 8 Ma (Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Special Volume 15).

The Iona pit was mined from 1976 to 1979. See Bethlehem mine (092ISE001) for production statistics.

Oxide reserves for Iona are 6,000,000 tonnes of 0.40 per cent copper (CIM Special Volume 46, page 175).