The study area is located 650 km NNW of Winnipeg near the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. The northern half is underlain by greenstone belt rocks and intrusions of the Canadian Precambrian Shield; the southern half by flat-bedded Paleozoic dolomites of the Manitoba Plain. Numerous base and precious metal occurrences are present within the Flin Flon - Snow Lake greenstone belt, including several Cu and Zn rich VMS deposits. The bedrock is covered by discontinuous Quaternary and Holocene deposits, including till, glaciolacustrine sediments and peatlands. The area is forested by a relatively pristine mixed coniferous deciduous boreal community. The dominant wind direction recorded in the Flin Flon area is towards the southeast and southwest, with strong components towards the north-northwest and south.

Several major and minor ice flow events have been recognized in the project area, including 4 glacial advances from the Keewatin Sector of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and 4 from the Labradorean Sector (Hudson ice). The predominant Keewatin movement was towards the south-southwest and covered the Shield portion and the area west of The Pas Moraine. The main Hudson ice flow was towards the west-southwest.

On the Shield, till is sandy, non-calcareous and derived from local sources found up-ice to the NNE. This unit grades into a sandy-silty, progressively slightly to moderately calcareous till south of the Shield margin and west of The Pas moraine. East of the moraine, the surface till is silty-sandy, highly calcareous, with distal and local components from the east and northeast.