The Sheep Hole Mountains and Twentynine Palms, California are to the southeast.

In the early Cambrian fossiliferous sediments from a shallow sea were deposited upon a basement of Proterozoic granite and then more uplifted to form the Marble Mountains.

Deeper sediments metamorphized into quartzite and form a thin layer ~10 ft (3.0 m) thick between the shale and basement granite.

Full specimens are rare; trilobite heads are the most commonly found feature.

[5] Established in 1994 by the U.S. Congress, the Trilobite Wilderness encompasses a large portion of the Marble Mountain range.