The formation is crops out in the Magallanes Region in southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego of Chile, the Santa Cruz Province of southern Argentina, and in the subsurface of the Malvinas Basin offshore Argentina and the Falkland Islands.

[2] Except for some western and southern exposures most of the formation is buried and known only from boreholes in the Magallanes and Malvinas Basins.

[2] Tobífera Formation has an up to 80 metres (260 ft) thick Basal Clastic Complex, a sub-unit made up of conglomerate and sandstone.

Tobífera Formation unconformably overlies metamorphic and igneous basement complexes of Cambrian age.

[4] Some rhyolites of Tobífera Formation were incorporated into Cordillera Darwin Metamorphic Complex.