The El Mers Group is a geological group in the

Middle Atlas The Middle Atlas (Amazigh: ⴰⵟⵍⴰⵙ ⴰⵏⴰⵎⵎⴰⵙ, ''Atlas Anammas'', Arabic: الأطلس المتوسط, ''al-Aṭlas al-Mutawassiṭ'') is a mountain range in Morocco. It is part of the Atlas mountain range, a mountainous region ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

. It is subdivided into 3 formations named the El Mers 1, 2 and 3 Formations respectively. It is a marine deposit primarily consisting of marl, with

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywal ...

present in the upper part of unit 3. and is the lateral equivalent of the terrestrial Guettioua Sandstone. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the group, most notably those of indeterminate

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...

s (=

Allosauridae Allosauridae is a family of medium to large bipedal, carnivorous allosauroid theropod dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic. Allosauridae is a fairly old taxonomic group, having been first named by the American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in ...

indet. and =

Megalosauridae Megalosauridae is a monophyletic family of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs within the group Megalosauroidea. Appearing in the Middle Jurassic, megalosaurids were among the first major radiation of large theropod dinosaurs. They were a relatively ...

? indet.),J. Jenny, A. Le Marrec, and M. Monbaron. (1981). Les empreintes de pas de dinosauriens dans le Jurassique moyen du Haut Atlas central (Maroc): nouveaux gisements et precisions stratigraphiques. inosaur footprints in the Middle Jurassic of the central High Atlas (Morocco): new deposits and stratigraphic detailsGeobos. 14(3):427-431 the sauropod ''"Cetiosaurus" mogrebiensis'', the stegosaur '' Adratiklit'', the ankylosaur ''

Spicomellus ''Spicomellus'' (meaning "collar of spikes") is an extinct genus of herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur that lived in the supercontinent Gondwana during the Middle Jurassic Period. The type and only known species is ''Spicomellus afer'', named ...

'', the inchnofossil ''

Selenichnites ''Selenichnites'' (‘moon track’) is a Cambrian to Jurassic trace fossil that has been found on every continent. It consists of crescent-shaped impressions interpreted as resting or burrowing traces of Xiphosura (extinct relatives of horsesho ...

'' and an indeterminate

teleosauroid Teleosauroidea is an extinct superfamily of thalattosuchian crocodyliforms living from the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostr ...

Machimosauridae Machimosauridae is an extinct family of teleosauroid thalattosuchian crocodyliforms. Text was copied from this source, which is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License The family was first identified in 2016, wh ...

indet.).

References

{{reflist Geologic groups of Africa Geologic formations of Morocco Jurassic System of Africa Jurassic Morocco Bathonian Stage Callovian Stage Shale formations Evaporite deposits Ichnofossiliferous formations Paleontology in Morocco