INTRODUCION TO MOROCCAN SAHARA FOSSILS

During the Devonian period , Palaeozoic era , approximately 380 millions years ago, the Moroccan Sahara was a floor of a vast prehistoric ocean , the first Mediterranean sea proto -tethys. Because of different natural factors , fish , plants and other old sea animals were fossilized after the withdrawal of the sea . Lack of oxygen , tectonic movements and high temperature are the main natural factors . The south east Moroccan Sahara is now a rich source of a very old and different fossils.
Geologically speaking , there are many land mines and quarries where fossils are embedded within huge rocks, each quarry has its specific features in term of age , raw material, and colour of fossils.
Trilobites , ammonites , goniatites and orthoceras are the main wide spreading fossils in our Sahara . On the one hand , some fossils are embedded within huge and vast marble quarries either from the black or the brown colour . For example the black one is very rich of orthoceras , the squids sediment, and the brown one is very rich of both ammonites and orthoceras .On the other hand, some other fossils are located in mountains that are very rich of limestone rocks such as trilobites .
More importantly , the Sahara is very famous with its unique fossilized marble . There are two kinds of marble : the black one is very rich on atlas mountains on the way to Ouarzazate , and the brown one which is 18km far from RissaniThe vast quarry is fully rich of the ammonites and orthoceras.

SOME DIFFINITIONS

*Ammonites : cephalopods that lived during the Jurassic and cretaceous periods of earth history . The time interval of about 140 million years . The Jurassic period began about 205 million years and the cretaceous ended about 150. We know about them as they are commonly found as fossils , formed when the remains or traces of the animals became buried in the sediments which is later solidified into rocks . They became extinct at the end of cretaceous. We have also Goniatites . they are from the same family of ammonites, but they differ in terms of sutures and age . Goniatites lived in the Devonian sea with curbed sutures , unlike ammonites whitch lived in the Jurassic, but with simple sutures.
*Orthoceras : sedimentary cephalopods with simple and long sutures . They lived in the Devonian period , they came from the squids sediments , and They are multi-dimensional .

*Trilobites: arthropods sediments .They are the most important of early sea animals. Our knowledge has been gained from the study of their fossils , usually impressions and traces left of their shells after burial in sediments which subsequently hardened into rocks. They abruptly lived in the early part of the Cambrian and became to dominate the Ordovician and the beginning of the Devonian sea . they came from old sea animals like crustaceans , spiders and insects . Generally , their formation based on limestone raw material. But there are specialists who work with skilful tools to get them out of their matrix. According to geologist , there are more than ten thousand species of trilobites. Each one has its specific term in geology. In Morocco , there are more than four hundreds species. The main famous Moroccan trilobites are phacops , metacanthina, ceratarges…..etc .
Our special activities are:

*Extraction of big blocks of marble stones from the quarries .

*Transformation of these kind of blocks into useful things (artisanal products) tables , desks , fountains …..

* Exportation to foreign countries .
While visiting our site, you can see samples of our commodities