It preserves fossils dated to the Aquitanian age of the Miocene epoch.

The marine deposits of the Ebelsberg Formation near Pucking were exposed in the 1980s[3] when a hydroelectric power plant was built across the river Traun close to Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.

However, more recent studies have shown this to be false, instead proposing a younger age corresponding with the Aquitanian stage of the Miocene.

Locally, this would correspond to the Upper Egerian, making the outcrops about 22 million years old.

[2] During the Aquitanian this part of Austria was covered by the extensive Paratethys sea, with the Ebelsberg Formation specifically having been formed in the outer neritic zone.