The Hoolio occurrence lies towards the northern end of the Finlayson Lake VMS District which includes Yukon-Tanana and Slide Mountain Terranes. The District is bounded by the Tintina Fault in the southwest and the Inconnu Thrust Fault in the northeast. The Yukon-Tanana and Slide Mountain Terranes represent continental arc and back-arc basin sequences that developed along the ancient Pacific margin of North America during late Devonian through Permian. The pericratonic rocks of the Yukon-Tanana Terrane and oceanic rocks of the Slide Mountain Terrane are juxtaposed against rocks of the North American continental margin sequence along the post-Late Triassic Inconnu Thrust Fault (Murphy et al., 2006). Rocks of the Yukon-Tanana and Slide Mountain Terranes in the Finlayson Lake District are characterized by variably deformed, lower greenschist to amphibolite facies metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks and affiliated metaplutonic suites. 

Prior to Late Triassic, the Yukon-Tanana Terrane experienced regional shortening and uplift. This terrane was imbricated with Mid-Paleozoic Slide Mountain Terrane after Late Triassic and the resultant structural stack was subsequently thrust onto the North American continental margin before Mid-Cretaceous (Murphy et al., 2006).

The Hoole property is mostly covered by quaternary glacial till and post-glacial deposits. Mafic Ross volcanics and Pelly Gneiss Suite meta-plutonic rocks can be mapped along the creek and river banks. Drilling on the property has intersected other stratified units of the Yukon-Tanana Terrane.

The Hoolio Creek Showing consists of small silicified arsenopyrite-pyrite lenses in sericite schists. A chip sample taken by Northern Dynasty across the full 60 cm wide of the zone returned 3.14 g/t gold, while an arsenopyrite-rich grab sample returned 10.34 g/t gold. Grab samples from other small showings on the property returned between 8 and 630 ppb gold. Grab samples from an area of galena and sphalerite mineralization yielded 0.1% copper, >1% lead, >1% zinc and 37 ppb gold (Gorzynski, 1988). Sampling by Strategic Metals during in 2010 returned values up to 9.66 g/t gold, up to 17.4% arsenic and 2.16% copper (Chung, 2011).