About 25% of the formation is massive fine-grained laminar gray red sandstone.

It is exposed throughout the drainage of the Conchas River and its tributaries[1] west to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

[3] The formation contains vertebrate fossils of Desmatosuchus, Typothorax, Paratypothorax, Postosuchus, rauisuchians, metoposaurids, Ceratodus, and indeterminate phytosaurs.

[1] Drepanosaurids, including Unguinychus and at least one other unnamed species, have been described from the formation's Homestead Site.

[4] The formation was first named by Lucas and Hunt in 1989 for beds formerly assigned to the informal lower shale member of the Chinle Formation in the Tucumcari Basin.