To recover the fossils, more than one and a half tons of Orsten limestone have been dissolved in acid, originally in a specifically designed laboratory in Bonn, more recently moved to Ulm.

[3] The Orsten fauna has improved the understanding of metazoan phylogeny and evolution, particularly among the arthropods, thanks in part to unique preservation of larval stages.

For the first time, fossils of tardigrades ("water bears") and apparently free-living pentastomids have been found.

The Cambrian strata consist of alum shales with limestone nodules (the Alum Shale Formation), which are interpreted as the products of an oxygen-depleted ("dysoxic")[b] marine bottom water habitat of a possibly offshore seashelf at depths of perhaps 50–100 m.[2] The bottom was rich in organic detritus, forming a soft muddy zone with floc in its surface layer.

Other Orsten-type preservation fauna have been found in Nevada, eastern Canada, England, Poland, Siberia, China and the Northern Territory of Australia.