The Pietraroia locality, from where E. gouldi specimens are known, is formed by a plattenkalk outcrop at the top of a rock slope (the Civita di Pietraroia) located at the eastern margin of the Matese Mountains. These mountains did not start to form until the Miocene, with the majority of the tectonic uplift that brought them to their current elevation having occurred between the Pliocene and the Pleistocene. At the locality, there are two distinct plattenkalk beds; the lower bed is coarser-grained and is largely devoid of fossils, while the upper bed is muddier and is the source of most fossils. The two beds are separated by lagoonal limestones. The plattenkalk is formed by layers of packstone and grainstone measuring thick, which alternate with layers of mudstone, wackestone, and marl; the upper bed is also characterized by the presence of sponge spicules, chert, bitumen, and coprolites.