The Charcoal Ovens Tuff takes its name from exposures about 1500 feet southeast of Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park on the east side of the southern Egan Range. The type section is in Sec. 36, T. 14 N., R. 63 E. (Hose and Blake, 1976). The tuff was quarried in the late 19th century as a building stone for ovens used to make charcoal.

The Charcoal Ovens Tuff is Oligocene (32 Ma) in age and is overlain at the type locality by the Windous Butte Tuff (Hose and Blake, 1976).

The Charcoal Ovens Tuff is composed of three cooling units and is commonly recognized in hand sample by the presence of visible crystals of honey-yellow sphene (Hose and Blake, 1976). These reddish to gray rhyolitic tuffs are poorly described in the literature. Very little is presently known about their chemistry or eruptive history.

The Charcoal Ovens Tuff is about 425 feet thick at its type locality in the southern Egan Range (Hose and Blake, 1976).

The Charcoal Ovens Tuff is only exposed within White Pine County in the southern Egan and Schell Creek Ranges (Hose and Blake, 1976).