[1][2] The highest summit is Tule Peak 8,724 feet (2,659 m)[3] and notable features include Needle Rock, the "Monkey Condos", the Painted Hills, and Mahogany Flat (7,800 ft (2,400 m)) near the center of the range.

[1][2] “The Virginia Mountains of Washoe County, Nevada, is an uplifted and collapsed anticlinal structure having a N-S trend but bending toward the southeast at the southern end of the range.

NW and NNW fault trends in Winnemucca Valley and within the low hills on the eastern range front are believed to be a part of the Walker Lane lineament.

Topographic, structural, and geologic evidence yields confidently a first-order, right-lateral, strike-slip fault interpretation.

The present topography of the Virginia Mountains is the result of bending of layers of volcanic rocks, high- angle and strike-slip faulting, and erosion in an arid to semi-arid climate.