The Gold Cliff Premier showing occurs on the east and west side of the Salmon River above the Cascade Creek junction in southeastern Alaska.

Located in the Intermontane Belt, the area, bounded on the west by the Coast Crystalline Complex and on the east by the Bowser Basin, is part of the Stikinia Terrane.

The showing is hosted by the Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic Hazelton Group Unuk River Formation metavolcanics. The Hazelton Group is a northwest trending, steeply east dipping belt of folded andesitic lapilli tuffs, flows and breccia containing a thick sequence of argillite and siltstone infolded along a synclinal axis. The sequence is intruded by the Early Jurassic Texas Creek plutonic suite of dacitic porphyry dykes and sills, Eocene granitic Hyder intrusives and lamprophyre dykes.

On the east side of the river a 6.1 metre open cut on a 61 centi- metre shear zone in tuff has exposed a pyritized band with associated quartz and calcite. This 76.0 centimetre wide band is reported to assay 34.28 grams per tonne gold and 102.84 to 137.12 grams per tonne silver (United States Geological Survey Bulletin 807).

At 245 metres altitude, on the west side of the river, minerali- zation occurs as a narrow stringer of galena and a 2.0 centimetre wide stringer of sphalerite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite and pyrrho- tite.