Study of the paleoflora preserved in the formation indicates the lake was around 1,500–2,900 metres (4,900–9,500 ft) in elevation surrounded by a tropical to subtropical environment that had a distinct dry season.

[2] Robert Carl Pearson (1967) reported on fish fossils collected in the Okanagan Highlands Toroda Creek Graben northwest of Republic, Washington, from Klondike Mountain Formation outcrops.

[1] Erismatopterus and Amphiplaga have been considered closely allied genera since the early 1900s, so much so that David Starr Jordan (1905) placed them into a separate family Erismatopteridae.

This placement was challenged by Rosen and Patterson who deemed the differences found by Jordan insufficient reason to segregate the genera into a stand-alone family.

The slab preserves a total of 259 fish, 257 of which are grouped in a nearly unidirectional elliptical cluster where all but 8 of them face the same direction.

[8] The specimen was compared to two other mass mortality slabs from the Green River Formation to determine if the inferred clustering was truly behavior related.

[9] Given the positioning of the E. levatus fry Mizumoto et al inferred the behavior was likely a form of group predator avoidance.

[8] This is supported by the presence in the same formation of fossil catfish, gar, and Diplomystus all of which would have been possible predators of the young fish.