The formation is composed of homogeneous feldspathic quartz-muscovite or quartz-eye schist containing quartz and feldspar megacrysts.

It is notable for tourmaline-rich zones containing accessory fuchsite, purple muscovite, epidote, clinozoisite, zoisite, thulite, tremolite, sillimanite, kyanite, cyprine, allanite, and stibiotantalite.

[3] Based on Uranium–lead dating of zircons, the age of the formation is 1.693 Mya, and it is interpreted as metamorphosed rhyolites from the waning stage of back arc rifting associated with the Yavapai orogeny.

It may have formed by syngenetic deposition from hydrothermal fluids, or a more general manganese enrichment of basin waters at the close of Vadito volcanism.

[5] The unit was included in the Ortega Quartzite by Arthur Montgomery in his study of the stratigraphy of the Picuris Mountains,[6] but it is metavolcanic rather than metasedimentary and so was redesignated the Glenwoody Formation of the Vadito Group by Bauer and Williams in their sweeping revision of the stratigraphy of northern New Mexico.