The Pipeline diatomite showing is situated on the south bank of the Bonaparte River Valley, 10 kilometres east of Clinton. The showing lies within Tilava Mining Corporation’s Aw property.

The occurrence is hosted in the north-draining Mio-Bonaparte channel, a fluviatile and lacustrine interlayer of the Miocene Deadman River Formation, which is part of the Miocene to Pleistocene Chilcotin Group, composed mainly of alkaline plateau basaltic flows. The Deadman River Formation (EMPR Open File 1989-21) is composed of rhyolite ash, tuffaceous sandstone, siltstone, shale and minor pebble conglomerate. The siltstones and shales are commonly carbonaceous and/or diatomaceous.

A 2-metre-high cut bank on the pipeline right-of-way exposes diatomaceous earth, which is probably in place. The material is in the middle of the Deadman River Formation in the Mio-Bonaparte channel, which is 2.5 kilometres wide and 450 metres deep.

The first record of work in the area is from 1932, when W.N.D. McKay staked the Winnifred claims over the Mika area to the west and completed minor trenching and underground testing of chromite occurrences.

The first asbestos claims were staked in the area of the Mika occurrence (092P 090) on the western side of the Bonaparte River in 1952. The property then sat dormant until 1957, when the Venus and Mac claims were staked over the area. Between 1957 and 1967, various groups conducted minor exploration programs including geological mapping, geophysical surveying and trenching.

The ground then again lay dormant until 1979, when CCH Resources Limited (later known as Campbell Resources Incorporated) staked the Mika claims (092P 090) over an area including both the Pipeline and Mika occurrences, and conducted geological and geochemical surveying on the Mika claim. The Pipeline occurrence lay within the Mika 4 claim area. The Mika 2 to 4 claims were later dropped.

By 1986, the Mika claim was owned by Mascot Gold Mines Limited, who conducted a geochemical evaluation of the known chromite showings. Later that same year, the Mika claim was sold to Corona Corporation.

Tilava Mining Corporation acquired the former Mika claims area, including the Pipeline occurrence, as the Aw property in 2000 and conducted a ground geophysical survey over an area of serpentinized peridotite. The main exploration targets for the property were chromite and magnesium, though sporadic work such as small hand-excavated trenches and pits had been completed on known bentonite showings.

In 2008, Tilava Mining Corporation excavated eight pits to test the layer of leonardite overlying the valley floor to the immediate west of the Pipeline occurrence. Excavation exposed a 60 to 75-centimetre-thick layer of leonardite overlying a layer of bentonite with a minimum thickness of 35 centimetres.

In 2011, Tilava mechanically stripped a 20 to 30-centimetre-thick layer of overburden from a 0.2-hectare area in an effort to expose the bentonite layer. Three of the previously excavated trenches and pits were enlarged and deepened, and two new small pits were excavated and sampled. In 2012, Tilava Mining Corporation collected one grab sample of diatomaceous earth from the pipeline bench cut as part of their bentonite exploration program.