It was deposited in a shallow shelf setting in the late Early Cambrian,[1] and contains an array of Burgess Shale-type microfossils that have been recovered by acid maceration.

[2] The formation is 100 to 300 metres (330 to 980 ft), and comprises shales, siltstones and sandstones with a high glauconite content.

[1] It has been exposed to remarkably little metamorphic activity given its great age; it is dated to the Bonnia–Olenellus Trilobite Zone.

[1] This zone lies within the Lower Cambrian Waucoban stage in North America, which is equivalent to the Caerfai in Wales, and thus the Comley of England,[3] and has yet to be formally ratified.

Its organic-walled fauna, known as the "Little Bear biota", includes both non-mineralized and originally-mineralized taxa, including hyolith and trilobite fragments, anomalocaridid claws, arthropod carapaces and brachiopods.