[6] The formation was laid down during the Ancestral Rocky Mountains orogeny, when most of New Mexico consisted of high islands surrounded by marine basins.

Analysis of the paleosols suggests a carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere of around 400 ppm by volume at the time of deposition.

[7] The exposures near Jemez Springs include some of the richest brachiopod fossil beds in North America.

[2] The Pennsylvanian stratigraphy of New Mexico has historically been unusually complex and inconsistent, with dozens of names for groups, formations, and members.

[8][1] Barry Kues and Katherine Giles recommended that the name Madera Group be applied to similar exposures of shelf and marginal basin beds of Desmoinean (upper Moscovian) to early Virgilian age found from north-central and central New Mexico south along the west side of the Orogrande Basin as far as the Caballo and Robledo Mountains.