The Privateer P3D vein lies in the Zeballos gold camp which is underlain by the Lower Jurassic Bonanza Group. The Bonanza Group is an island arc sequence consisting of basaltic to rhyolitic volcanic rocks. Conformably underlying the Bonanza Group rocks are limestones and limy clastics of the Quatsino and Parson Bay formations, and Karmutsen Formation tholeiitic basalts, all belonging to the Upper Triassic Vancouver Group. Dioritic to granodioritic plutons of the Zeballos intrusion phase of the Jurassic Island Intrusions have intruded all older rocks. The Zeballos stock, a quartz diorite phase of the Eocene Catface Intrusions, is spatially related to the areas gold-quartz veins. Bedded rocks are predominantly northwest strik- ing, southwest dipping, and anticlinally folded about a northwest axis.

The P3D vein strikes 025 degrees and dips 64 degrees west. It lies in Eocene quartz diorite breccia (Bulletin 27, Figure 2), cut by small granodiorite dykes, is 10 centimetres wide and consists of massive quartz with patches of chalcopyrite. The sphalerite-galena- pyrite mineralogy typical for the Zeballos district producing mines is absent.