It includes late Cretaceous to Eocene aged impure limestone along with coal bearing chalk and marl.
The rocks have been subjected to pyrometamorphism resulting from combustion of contained or underlying coal or hydrocarbon deposits.
[1] During the 1960s, a group of scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, including Yaakov Ben-Tor, and Lisa Heller-Kallai, discovered that the Hatrurim Formation contained several rare, if not unique, mineral assemblages.
[4][5][6][7] A fourth mineral discovered by Gross was only described later by Dietmar Weber and Adolf Bischoff, which they named grossite after Shulamit.
In 2011, a new perovskite-related mineral from the Hatrurim Basin was named shulamitite to honor Shulamit Gross for her works.