The Clarkia fossil beds (also known locally as the Fossil Bowl) is a Miocene lagerstätte near Clarkia, Idaho. The fossil beds were laid down in a lake roughly 15-million-years ago, when a drainage basin was dammed by the flood basalts of the Columbia River Plateau. Narrow and deep, the lake's cold, anoxic water and rapid sedimentation created perfect fossil conditions. The basin itself has remained tectonically stable, with little deformation since then. The fossils indicate that the region's climate was much warmer and wetter than today's, and similar to that of southern Florida.