The Branham Flats showing is located on the Peace River near Gold Bar, approximately 47 kilometres west-northwest of Hudson’s Hope, in the Liard Mining Division. The occurrence area is now covered by the flood waters of Williston Lake.

The area is located approximately 25 kilometres west of the eastern extent of deformation in the fold-and-thrust belt that characterizes the Rocky Mountain Front. The region is underlain by dominantly Jurassic to Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of Ancestral North American tectonic provenance. Deformation is characterized by kilometre-scale complex folding and dominantly west-dipping thrusting. Branham Flats is located near a kilometre-scale folded contact between Upper Jurassic to Cretaceous sediments to the south and Triassic sediments to the north.

Gold and platinum placer occurrences found in the Finlay, Parsnip and Peace rivers have been worked since the first discovery by Bill Cust in 1861. The placers generally occur in the top 1.5 to 3 metres of reworked glacial gravels deposited as bars and benches along streams and rivers. Normally worked by hand, these placer operations had limited success. The gold is fine and flat and platinum, while common with high values reported locally, was considered unimportant in most of these placers.

Just over 10,000 grams (328 ounces) of gold were recovered from this occurrence between 1931 and 1940 (Bulletin 28, page 47). Although Branham Flats was worked by heavy machinery, numerous tests of the gravels indicate an overall low grade.