Scheuchzer's writings prompted a flourishing trade in the fossil fishes of Glarus, which had been sent to museums all around Europe throughout the 18th century.
[3] Many of these fishes were described with Linnean taxonomy for the first time in the early 19th century by Europe's pioneering paleontologists, including Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville and Louis Agassiz.
[4][5] The Glarus slate is consistent with a marine environment in the western Paratethys Sea.
The Alpine orogeny uplifted these former marine fossils far above sea level, where they are exposed today.
The paleobiota of the Glarus Slate shows close affinities with that of the Rauenberg Lagerstätte of Germany and early Oligocene formations of the Romanian Carpathians and the Caucasus Mountains.