The Tungsten King deposit is within quartz-carbonate-mariposite rock, or listwanite and dolomite which is intensely brecciated, recrystallized and sheared. The dolomite seems to be a pod of carbonate alteration product associated with the more extensive quartz-carbonate-mariposite alteration, rather than a pod of sedimentary rock as suggested by some workers. Serpentinite and quartz-carbonate-mariposite alteration assemblages are within or adjacent to the steeply-dipping Relay Creek fault. Feldspar porphyry dykes intrude listwanite, although not immediately adjacent to the significant metal concentrations.

Quartz veins with scheelite and stibnite were first discovered within a two-metre wide fracture zone in brecciated recrystallized and sheared dolomite. Stibnite veins and disseminations occur within listwanite 75 metres to the north, northwest. Cinnabar (for which the area was first prospected) occurs as films along shear planes as well as disseminations within foliated greenstone (Bridge River Complex) and listwanite, peripheral to the main scheelite-stibnite showings. Original reports described a zone 30 metres wide and 230 metres long containing disseminated cinnabar; subsequent examinations outlined only traces of cinnabar. In 1942 and 1952 about 34 tonnes of ore were mined grading about 5 per cent tungsten trioxide (WO3) (National Mineral Inventory 092O Au1; Geological Survey of Canada Economic Geology Series No. 17). The scheelite-stibnite veins at the Tungsten King prospect were most likely deposited at low temperatures and at relatively shallow depth, possibly an epithermal-type environment (similar to that described for the Tungsten Queen prospect - 092O 018).