The Gordon Creek Coal showing is exposed in a trench close to a swamp off a logging road, approximately 100 metres south of Gordon Creek and 3 kilometres east of Highway 8.

The area is underlain by Middle and Upper Cretaceous Spences Bridge Group volcanic and sedimentary sequences comprising mainly porphyritic andesites and vesicular basalts (Map 30). Early Jurassic-Late Triassic Guichon Creek batholith quartz diorites occur to the east. Some sources describe the underlying rocks as Upper Triassic Nicola Group volcanics (Assessment Report 245).

A coal-bearing stratabound sedimentary horizon is exposed at shallow depth in Spences Bridge Group sandstones and mudstones.