The Coal Creek diatomite/bentonite occurrence is located on the east side of the Vidette access road, approximately 50 (air) kilometres north of Savona. The area is accessible on a good-quality gravel road which leads north from the Trans-Canada Highway approximately 7.4 kilometres west of Savona. Access is also good on logging roads via Loon Lake to the northwest.

Basalts of the Miocene Chasm Formation (Chilcotin Group) mantle most of the area, however, beneath the basalts, massive rhyolite ash of the Miocene Deadman River Formation (Chilcotin Group) is exposed in cliffs in the Deadman Valley to the south for a length of several kilometres. The rhyolite ash is the predominant lithology in a Miocene channel filling of fluviatile and lacustrine sediments occupying the northwest trending Mio-Snohoosh/Mio-Hamilton Channel (Open File 1989-21). The flat lying Mio-Snohoosh channel is more than 200 metres in thickness and the best exposures of the rhyolite ash sections are on the north side of Sherwood Creek (092P 093).

The Coal Creek diatomaceous earth showing (Open File 1989-21) is along trend from and north of the Mio-Snohoosh channel and lies within 5 metres of the top of a Miocene channel filling of fluviatile and lacustrine sediments occupying the south trending Mio-Hamilton Channel which is over 500 metres wide and 150 metres deep. The unit lies within the Deadman River Formation of the Chilcotin Group.

The Coal Creek property and a considerable area to the north was staked and prospected in 1995 (Assessment Report 23785). Nine chip samples representing a stratigraphic thickness of 28 metres and analysed by x-ray diffraction, for oil and water retention specific gravity, pH and cation exchange capacity.