John H. Mercer, United States Antarctic Research Program (USARP) geologist, proposed this name based upon the abundance of rose quartz that occurs in the superficial deposits of these hills.

Its landscape exhibits mature, steep, alpine relief, including horns, arêtes, cirques, and glacially carved valleys.

Within the Quartz Hills, ice cover is limited to perennial patches with the exception of one small, isolated glacier.

The older of these drifts represent multiple periods of time during the mid to late Cenozoic when Reedy Glacier was significantly thicker than today.

Thin patches of even older, highly weathered, undifferentiated drift lacking definite limits occur in the Quartz Hills.

[5] Finally, within the Reedy Glacier valley walls, outcrops of about 100 to 150 m (330 to 490 ft) of lithified diamictites and rhythmites (interbedded stratified mudstones and sandstones) occur unconformably overlying pre-Cenozoic bedrock.

These diamictites and rhythmites, which are assigned to the Quartz Hills Formation of the Sirus Group, nonconformably overlie a glacially grooved and striated undulating surface eroded into granites and schistose rocks.

Within the Quartz Hills, the dark, fine-grained metasedimentary rocks consist of gray to black phyllites, metagraywackes, and impure quartzites of the LaGorce Formation.

Named by US-ACAN for Lieutenant Commander Robert L. May, United States Navy, helicopter pilot at McMurdo Station, 1962–63.

Named by US-ACAN for Lieutenant Commander John D. Stich, United States Navy, pilot at McMurdo Station during 1962–63 and 1963–64.

Named by US-ACAN for Captain Howard Chapin, USMC, pilot with United States Navy Squadron VX-6 at McMurdo Station, 1962–63 season.