Versteinerte Pflanzen

Morocco, Province Meknès-Tafilalet, Western Margin of Hamada du Guir Plateau

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Abstract

I describe fossil wood together with vertebrate fossils from the far east of the Meknès-Tafilalet province, a few kilometers from the Algerian border. These fossils occur in fine to coarse clastics (siltstones, sandstones and breccia) of the Cretaceous (Albian to Cenomanian). The fossil-bearing strata belongs to three formations:

• Ifezouane Formation (Albian): continental red clastics (siltstones, sandstones, breccia) with vertebrate fossils and floral remains,
• Aoufous Formation (Albian - Cenomanian): fine grained deltaic sediments (sandstones, greenish marls),
• Akrabou Formation (Turonian): marine limestones and calcareous marls.

During a field trip in November 2013 we did excavations at the western margin of Hamada du Guir plateau. At the base of a 8 m high profile silt-/sandstones with teeth of the sclerorhynchid sawfish Onchopristis numidus and other faunal remains are cropping out. The breccia at the top of the profile contains fossil wood in dimensions of centimeters up to 20 meters in length with prevailing poor preservation of the tissue. Crusts of dark brown ferriferous sandstones and mineralizations with white calcite are very common for the brown, reddish and yellowish fossil woods. Boring tunnels of wood-decaying organisms are rarely to see. The floral remains are restored with the embadded clastic sediments (no in-situ-conditions).