The Burned Mountain Formation as originally defined is a metamorphosed rhyolite that appears to have intruded the Moppin Complex, mostly as sills.

[2] The metarhyolite making up much of the formation is reddish orange in color, but ranges from brick red to light pink.

[4] Several beds of highly muscoviteized Burned Mountain Formation were originally assigned to the Petaca Schist,[5] but this unit name has since been abandoned.

[6] The unit was originally designated as the Vallecitos rhyolite by Evan Just in his study of pegmatites in the Tusas Mountains.

[4] It was designated as a formation in the Vadito Group by Bauer and Williams in their sweeping revision of northern New Mexico Precambrian stratigraphy in 1989.