The formation crops out west and northwest of Chagan-Uzun in the Altai Republic, Russia, in particular around Kurai and Akkaya[2] in the Kosh-Agach region.

[4] The Baratal limestone of Cambrian age is the oldest known carbonate deposit on a seamount,[5] akin to a present-day atoll.

The ooid mudstones may have developed in lagoonal environments like they are found on Great Bahama Bank,[11] where photic zone[8] waters were intensely agitated by tides[11] and where the climate may have been hot and dry.

[12] The platform on which the Baratal limestone had formed would have eventually ended up in the Siberian trench due to plate tectonics and was amalgamated[12] onto the Kuznetsk-Altai[14] or Uimen-Lebed' island arc.

[6] The Ediacaran-Cambrian transition at the end of Snowball Earth featured a massive change in animal fauna, the so-called "Cambrian radiation".

Pieces of oceanic crust older than this - including sediments and volcanic rocks - however have been amalgamated to accretionary complexes in continents.