 Magnetic orientation of particles relative to the bedding planes of the strata suggest a latitude of about 12°N, a tropical siting.In the Bear Gulch Limestone, many genera of fossil fishes and some invertebrates were occasionally preserved in detail when they died and sank to the bottom of a shallow marine or estuarine lagoon.In such cases, conditions on the silty bottom preventing the usual bacterial decomposition are usually invoked, characterized as close to anoxic, thus suppressing ordinary bacterial decomposition; however, fossils of fishes of distinctly bottom-dwelling type are present, and traces of worm burrows or similar bottom disturbance show that sufficient oxygen was available in the upper levels of bottom silt.