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

The formation is also exposed in the canyon of Rio Grande del Rancho south of Talpa, New Mexico, where brachiopods, crinoids, rugose coral, and graptolite fossils can be found.

Keyes applied the name, Madera limestone, to what he identified as upper Carboniferous beds in the Sandia Mountains.

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

[11][9] Kues and 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.