The El Alamein mine is situated on the south bank of the Tulameen River, 200 metres east-southeast of the mouth of Lawless Creek and 5.5 kilometres west-southwest of the town of Tulameen.

The Tulameen River valley, in this vicinity, is underlain by greenstone (chlorite schist) with lesser felsic volcanics and minor interbedded sediments of the Upper Triassic Nicola Group. These rocks strike northwest, dip steeply southwest and are regionally metamorphosed up to greenschist facies.

The mine is developed in a shear zone up to 9 metres wide, striking 120 degrees and dipping 60 to 65 degrees southwest. The zone roughly follows the contact between argillite to the northeast and rhyolite porphyry to the southwest. It has been traced southeasterly from the river bank up the north slope of Olivine Mountain for 850 metres, over a vertical elevation of 190 metres. The northwestern part of the zone is hosted in a hornblende diorite dike, 6 metres wide, which also occurs in the hangingwall of the shear farther southeast. The dike-hosted section of the zone is 1.2 to 2.4 metres wide.

Hostrocks are variably altered in the shear zone. The footwall argillite and interbedded greywackes are only slightly altered, while the hornblende diorite and rhyolite porphyry are significantly altered. Moderately sheared material contains sericite, carbonate and chlorite, while intensely sheared material consists entirely of actinolite.

The zone contains narrow stringers of calcite and quartz erratically mineralized with native gold. The stringers are 2.5 to 15 centimetres wide and from 0.3 to 1 metre long. One set of stringers strikes northeast and dips 60 degrees southwest, and a second set strikes northwest and dips 45 degrees northeast. Gold is present in a section of the shear zone extending southeast from the river bank for 23 metres. The gold occurs as crenulated layers and discontinuous wisps well within calcite-quartz stringers, along partings of wallrock enclosed by vein material, or along the walls of calcite-quartz stringers. Pyrite and chalcopyrite occur in the veinlets and are disseminated in the sheared and brecciated diorite. A sample taken across 1.2 metres at the face of the middle of three adits assayed 96.7 grams per tonne gold, 21 grams per tonne silver and nil platinum (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1949, page 129). A second sample taken across 0.46 metre assayed 27 grams per tonne gold and nil platinum; this sample is of actinolite from the upper adit and includes a quartz stringer, 7.6 centimetres wide (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1949, page 128).

The deposit was discovered in 1937 when a slide exposed showings of native gold in the river bank. It was eventually mined from three adits developed in the steep south bank of the river by El Alamein Mines Ltd. Gold production between 1949 and 1951 amounted to 6252 grams recovered from an unknown amount of ore.