Shoreline facies of the Yeso Formation in the northern Pedernal Hills, New Mexico
— Frank E. Kottlowski

The Pedernal Hills are near the geographic center of New Mexico, on the western edge of the Great Plains about 80 km east—southeast of Albuquerque. The hills form a 150- to 450-m-high upland, east of the Estancia Valley, and slope gently eastward to merge with the High Plains. This 650-km² raised area is underlain chiefly by rocks of Precambrian age—mostly rounded granite-gneiss knobs on the south that give way northward to sharp, rugged ridges of metaquartzite—and culminates at Pedernal Mountain, altitude 2307 m. In depositional contact with the Precambrian units are shoreline facies of the middle Permian Yeso Formation, alluvial beds of the Ogallala Formation, pediment sediments and alluvium.