The Burr showing comprises a spectacular gossan on the south side of the Thompson River valley about 9 kilometres northeast of Ashcroft and just south of the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. The showing is located at the northern edge of the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic Guichon Creek batholith where the northwest striking Barnes Creek fault cuts across the batholith. The fault separates andesite agglomerate of the Upper Triassic Nicola Group on the southwest from a quartz diorite intrusion on the northeast. The medium-grained intrusion is believed to be a hybrid phase of the batholith.

The gossan, comprised of pyritic, limonitic and clay altered decomposed rock, overlies the quartz diorite-andesite contact zone. The bright coloured altered zone is up to 200 metres wide, highly fractured and is well exposed in a steep-sided ravine at the northern end of an unnamed creek; the southern extent of the zone is unknown and is covered by thick glacial drift and volcanic flows of the Eocene Kamloops Group. The ravine marks the northwestern end of the Barnes Creek fault.

The gossan was first described in the Minister of Mines Annual Report for 1898 where mention was made of a large body of ore, carrying gold and silver, but principally copper. An adit, 24 metres long, was run in on the claims. No further work was reported until the late 1960s and 1970s when the property was known as the Pyrite. The Pyrite claims were staked by A. Ablett in 1967 and 1969. In 1969, under an option agreement with Placid Oil Co., the Pyrite and adjacent claims were extensively soil sampled and followed up with the drilling of three diamond drill holes in 1970. In 1971, an induced polarization survey and geological mapping was completed on behalf of Thor Explorations Limited. In 1977, a geological and geochemical survey was performed by Bethlehem Copper Corporation. The Burr 1 claim was staked in 1982 by M. Morrison to cover the main gossan zone and was prospected in the same year. In 1984, the Burr 2 claim was staked to cover the southern extent of the zone; a ground VLF-EM survey was conducted. The Burr property was allowed to lapse, but in May 1990, the Key claims were staked by M. Morrison. During April 1991, a ground magnetometer survey was conducted over portions of the claims and in 1992 a geological mapping program was carried out. The property was staked as the Copper Key claims in 1994 and then partially restaked again by M. Morrison in 1995 as the Copper Keg and Copper Kettle. Surveys conducted include a ground VLF-EM in 1996, a geological in 1997, a biogeochemical in 1998 and additional follow-up sampling in 2000. In 2011, Gitennes Exploration completed a program of geological mapping, soil geochemical survey and rock sampling.