Predominantly red beds consisting of argillaceous siltstone; silty mudstone; argillaceous, very fine grained sandstone; and shale; mostly reddish-brown to brownish-purple, and grayish-red. Red beds occur typically in 3- to 7-m (10- to 23-ft-)-thick, cyclic playa-lake-mudflat sequences and fining-upward fluvial sequences. Lamination is commonly indistinct due to burrowing, desiccation, and paleosol formation. Where layering is preserved, most bedforms are wavy parallel lamination and trough and climbing-ripple cross lamination. Calcite- or dolomite-filled vugs and flattened cavities, mostly 0.5 to 0.2 mm (0.02-0.08 in) across, occur mostly in the lower half. Sand-filled burrows, 2 to 5 mm (0.08-0.2 in) in diameter, are prevalent in the upper two-thirds of the unit. Desiccation cracks, intraformational breccias, and curled silt laminae are abundant in the lower half. Lake cycles, mostly 2 to 5 m (7-16 ft) thick, have a basal, greenish-gray, argillaceous siltstone; a medial, dark-gray to black, pyritic, carbonaceous, fossiliferous, and, in places, calcareous lake-bottom fissile mudstone or siltstone; and an upper thick-bedded, gray to reddish and purplish-gray argillaceous siltstone with desiccation cracks, intraformational breccias, burrows, and mineralized vugs. Thickness of the formation between Sourland Mountain and Sand Brook syncline is about 3,500 m (11,483 ft).