The Corell's Point faunal assemblage of the lower Gowanda Shale Member, Canadaway Formation, represents a series of burrowed zones yielding biocoenoses of benthos, taphocoenoses of nektos, and wood fragments. Marine-transported animals and plants are generally pyritized, but many endemic organisms are not. The faunal assemblage occurs at various levels in the Gowanda Shale, and may recur in adjacent stratigraphic units. The Corell's Point faunal assemblage and associated pyrite nodules apparently formed in a "starved" shelf setting, influenced by sporadic influxes of sediment, possibly by distal turbidites.

Cephalopods were added to the Corell's Point assemblage by postmortem pelagic drift; their attendant epizoans probably detached and gave rise to small, locally abundant auloporid mounds. Some organisms may have been rafted in attached to algal mats; these mats possibly carried ammonoids, nautiloids, wood fragments, pelmatozoans, bivalves, gastropods, and fishes, producing infrequent dense associations of these organisms. Mild bioturbation of surface muds was effected by Zoophycos and infaunal mollusks. Winnowing of fine muds by organisms may account for the consistent silty texture of sediment associated with the Corell's Point faunal assemblages; underlying and overlying strata are generally fine-grained with discrete siltstone beds.

Zoophycos and other lebensspuren, plants, and some cephalopods are encountered in sections of the Gowanda Shale lacking the Corell's Point faunal assemblage. These shales and siltstones exhibit relatively little evidence of fauna-induced sediment mixing.

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