It has no contact metamorphism with the Moppin Complex, suggesting the country rock was only slightly cooler when the granite was injected.

[3] The orthogneiss crops out around the town of Tres Piedras, New Mexico and intrudes the Moppin Complex to the west in the Tusas Mountains.

[5] The unit was originally included in the Tusas Granite by Just in his 1937 survey of pegmatites in northern New Mexico.

Barker included exposures near the town of Tres Piedras, along the Rio Tusas, and near Burned Mountain and Hopewell.

[7] Wobus and Hedge removed the western outcrops from the pluton[8] based on an unreliable radiometric date,[9] but Davis et al. concluded that the Tusas Mountain orthgneiss is likely part of the Tres Piedras Orthogneiss.