The Tsitika Black showing is located on the north- north eastern slopes of Elliot Mountain, approximately 13.5 kilometres north east of Woss.

The area is underlain by rocks of the Vernon Batholith, apart of the Jurassic Island Plutonic Suite. The batholith consists of homogeneous body of medium to coarse grained plutonic rocks ranging from biotite-hornblende quartz diorite to leuco-quartz monzonite.

The rock is found as scattered outcrops and boulder fields in the Tsitika River valley. This stone is a more fractured and darker phase of Tsitika Grey (092L 345). Because of the high fracture density, it has limited use other than for masonry blocks.

Tsitika Black is light black with grey-pink highlights. It is a uniform, fine to medium-grained diorite/gabbro. Major constituents are plagioclase, biotite and clinopyroxene (augite). Minor constituents are chlorite, magnetite, pyrite (3 per cent), quartz and apatite. Pyroxene is strongly altered to chlorite, biotite is generally unaltered and plagioclase shows weak albitization. Pyrite is fresh and unaltered. The rock takes a good polish (8/10) and has minor pitting on biotite. The rock has a well developed planar fabric but no visible alteration or staining. There is no macroscopic fracturing and only minor microfracturing of primarily plagioclase.

In 1996, Mammoth Geological completed a program of test splitting and sampling of the available rock at the discovery outcrop. The program identified that the stone readily splits along grain into 10 centimetre split faces. The stone was also reported to take a “good” polish with few signs of pitting or micro-fracturing (Assessment Report 24425).