The Scat showing consists of minor lead-zinc-barite mineralization in black slate. The occurrence is centred on a mineralized outcrop on Scatter River on the Scat 4 claim, in the Caribou Range in the Northern Rocky Mountains, 85 kilometres west-northwest of Nelson Forks (Assessment Report 10810, Map 2). Interest in the area was generated by widespread soil and silt geochemical anomalies, although they are generally sporadic and weak.

The area is underlain by three units: well-bedded limestone of the Upper Silurian to Middle Devonian Dunedin Formation; slate of the Upper Devonian Besa River Formation; and shale, siltstone and quartz sandstone of the Mississippian Mattson Formation (Assessment Report 10810; Geological Survey of Canada Open File 673). All are part of Ancestral North America (Geological Survey of Canada Map 1713A). The rocks generally strike north and dip gently east. A few minor faults are present, striking approximately 040 degrees.

The most important unit is the Besa River Formation, which is mainly black, carbonaceous slate with interbedded siliceous rocks. The slate locally contains nodules and concretions of barite, fluorite, chert or pyrite, or a combination of these; bitumen was also noted (Assessment Report 10810). Barite nodules, which may consist of coarse, bladed crystals, are characteristic of the formation, and may reach 40 centimetres in diameter. Some outcrops are marked by ferricrete, and iron seeps occur locally.

The area was explored to discover the source of lead, zinc and silver anomalies found in stream sediments. The most anomalous were traced to siliceous beds or to lenses or nodules of chert or cherty mudstone in the Besa River slate containing veins of calcite, barite and pyrite, with minor sphalerite, galena and quartz. A sample from one such outcrop (on which the occurrence is centred) from near the top of the formation was analyzed at 0.31 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 10810).

No single stratigraphic horizon carried a statistically significant increase in any of the metals of interest (Assessment Report 10810). Anomalies of respective metals in the soil sample survey generally do not coincide.

This area was originally staked in 1972 by Pan Ocean Oil Ltd., Frontier Resources and Bow Valley Exploration to cover barite and fluorite showings in the Dunedin Limestone formation. The ground was staked as the Scat claims by Utah Mines in late October, 1981 to cover anomalous stream sediment samples obtained during the 1980 and 1981 regional reconnaissance program. In 1982, the Utah program consisted of a soil sampling survey on a 500 x 100 metre grid, rock chip sampling and stream sediment sampling. Geological mapping at a 1:10,000 scale was also completed.

In 2010, Fillipo Ferri led a Geological Survey of BC mapping crew in the western Liard Basin, during which they discovered barite and sulphide mineralization (MT showing, 094N 012), similar to that of the Scat occurrence (Fieldwork 2010, page 23).