The Francis Island occurrence is on the easternmost contact of a granitic intrusion of Cretaceous age. The intrusion is mostly underwater, but a substantial granitic mass, inferred to be part of the same pluton, is exposed on the south part of Marble Mountain across Whidbey Passage from Francis Island. The granitic rock is intruded into marble of Devonian and Silurian age (Brew and others, 1978; pl. IA).

Mineral deposits occur in sheared tremolitic marble and in pyroxene-garnet tactite about 5-feet thick at the granitic (quartz diorite) contact. Small rich pods of bornite and other minerals in tactite were described in older reports, including Buddington, (1926, p. 56), Buddington and Chapin (1929, p. 323), Smith, (1933, p. 323), Reed (1938, p. 69) and Rossman (1963-B 1121-K, p. K51). Some of the material was mined. This site has apparently been covered by landslide debris. A mineralized fault zone 10 feet thick can be followed for 50 feet before it is covered with surficial debris; MacKevett and others (1971, fig. 8) show the probable relation of the original site to the fault zone, which locally contains chalcopyrite, bornite, tetrahedrite (?), chalcocite (?), pyrite, and probably sphalerite. Malachite and pyrolusite occur as secondary minerals. MacKevett and others (1971) reported 7000 ppm copper, 1000 ppm zinc, 200 ppm antimony, 150 ppm bismuth, 20 ppm tin, and 1.46 ounce per ton silver in a selected sample of copper-stained metamorphic rock collected at or near the fault zone. Magnetite occurs locally in the tactite. A soil survey suggests the possibility of buried mineral deposits in the area (MacKevett and others, 1971, fig. 8).

The deposit size is limited by the size of the island. A tactite or skarn affiliation is consisted by the high bismuth content found by MacKevett and others (1971).