Khadija El Hariri

Ordovician faunas of Burgess Shale type

The renowned soft-bodied faunas of the Cambrian period, which include the Burgess Shale, disappear from the fossil record in the late Middle Cambrian, after which the Palaeozoic fauna dominates. The disappearance of faunas of Burgess Shale type curtails the stratigraphic record of a number of iconic Cambrian taxa. One possible explanation for this loss is a major extinction, but more probably it reflects the absence of preservation of similar soft-bodied faunas in later periods. Here we report the discovery of numerous diverse soft-bodied assemblages in the Lower and Upper Fezouata Formations (Lower Ordovician) of Morocco, which include a range of remarkable stem-group morphologies normally considered characteristic of the Cambrian. It is clear that biotas of Burgess Shale type persisted after the Cambrian and are preserved where suitable facies occur. The Fezouata biota provides a link between the Burgess Shale communities and the early stages of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

Endemism as a palaeobiogeographic parameter of basin history illustrated by early- and mid-Liassic peri-Tethyan ammonite faunas

Abstract Episodes of endemism during Sinemurian–Pliensbachian times are described from synthetic data (publications and unpublished collections) about ammonite faunas of the western reaches of the Tethys. The Lusitanian, Sub-Betic and High Atlas basins receive special attention. The study shows that (1) endemism occurs principally in the Lusitanian and High Atlas basins, which are the most confined palaeogeographic structures; (2) it tends to occur synchronously in different basins but involving different taxa, i.e. it is independent of phylogeny; (3) it is not obviously correlated with relative sea-level at any given time. However, the fact that episodes of endemism coincide with second-order regressive phases suggests some connection between sea-level falls, independently of the sea level, and the development of endemic faunas.

The Fezouata Biota (Central Anti-Atlas, Morocco): Biostratigraphy and Associated Environmental Conditions of an Ordovician Burgess Shale

The Lower Ordovician Fezouata Biota (central Anti-Atlas, Morocco) is the sole exceptionally preserved marine fossil assemblage of Burgess Shale type so far known from post-Cambrian rocks. It offers a unique opportunity to document the transition between the Cambrian and Palaeozoic evolutionary faunas. Recent fieldwork in the area north of Zagora has yielded critical new information on both the precise stratigraphic position of, and the palaeoenvironmental conditions associated with, the exceptionally preserved assemblages of the Fezouata Biota.

A xandarellid artiopodan from Morocco – a middle Cambrian link between soft-bodied euarthropod communities in North Africa and South China

Xandarellida is a well-defined clade of Lower Palaeozoic non-biomineralized artiopodans that is exclusively known from the early Cambrian (Stage 3) Chengjiang biota of South China. Here we describe a new member of this group, Xandarella mauretanica sp. nov., from the middle Cambrian (Stage 5) Tatelt Formation of Morocco, making this the first non-trilobite Cambrian euarthropod known from North Africa. X. mauretanica sp. nov. represents the youngest occurrence of Xandarellida – extending its stratigraphic range by approximately 10 million years – and expands the palaeobiogeographic distribution of the group to the high southern palaeolatitudes of West Gondwana. The new species provides insights into the lightly sclerotized ventral anatomy of Xandarellida, and offers stratigraphically older evidence for a palaeobiogeographic connection between Burgess Shale-type euarthropod communities in North Africa and South China, relative to the (Tremadocian) Fezouata biota.