Exceptional Fossils from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco

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Exceptional Fossils from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco

Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 10, EGU2008-A-10080, 2008 SRef-ID: 1607-7962/gra/EGU2008-A-10080 EGU General Assembly 2008 © Author(s) 2008 Exceptional fossils from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco Peter Van Roy (1) & Bertrand Lefebvre (2) (1) UCD School of Geological Sciences, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland, (2) UMR CNRS 5125 PEPS, Université Lyon 1, France In recent years, the Lower Ordovician deposits to the north of Zagora, southeastern Morocco have been shown to represent an important source of exceptionally preserved fossils. Exceptional preservation in the area is not limited to discrete strati- graphic levels, but rather occurs in spatially limited "Konservat-Lagerstätten pockets" which are distributed from the top of the Lower Fezouata Formation (upper Tremado- cian) throughout the entire Upper Fezouata Formation (lower - upper Floian). Ex- ceptional fossils recovered from the area so far include Burgess Shale-type sponges, palaeoscolecids and other vermiform organisms and various unmineralised arthropods including marrellomorphs and cheloniellids. The most celebrated fossil to be col- lected from the area to date, however, is that of the first machaeridian with preserved soft tissues, providing unequivocal proof of the annelid affinities of the Machaeridia. Co-occurring classical skeletal fossils indicate that the assemblages represent normal, open marine biotas. These Early Ordovician biotas are of particular interest because they document the onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and the resulting transition from the Cambrian Evolutionary Fauna to the Palaeozoic Evolu- tionary Fauna. So far, this major evolutionary radiation has been studied almost exclu- sively on the basis of skeletal fossils alone..

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