Ordovician stratigraphy and benthic community replacements in the eastern Anti-Atlas, Morocco
Résumé
The Anti-Atlas contains a thick, volcanic-free Ordovician succession, originally deposited in a passive-margin basin. Three main sedimentary packages are bounded by major unconformities: (i) the Tremadocian–Floian Lower Fezouata and Upper Fezouata formations, which unconformably overlie a palaeorelief of Cambrian rifting volcanosedimentary complexes, and which are subsequently overlain by a Dapingian
paraconformable gap; (ii) the Darriwilian–Katian Tachilla Formation and First Bani and Ktaoua groups, the latter unconformably overlain by a Hirnantian glaciogenic succession; and (iii) the Second Bani Group, which subsequently infilled the former glaciogenic palaeorelief. Due to the scarcity of carbonate interbeds for etching analyses, leading to rare references of conodonts, the global Ordovician chart is interpolated on
the basis of microphytoplancton (acritarchs and chitinozoans), regional graptolites and brachiopods. The Ordovician counter-clockwise rotation of Gondwana led its Moroccan margin from mid- to high-latitude positions, leading to the onset of a siliciclastic, wave- and storm-dominated platform. Flooding surfaces are marked by shelly silty carbonate interbeds that reflect the episodic development of echinoderm–bryozoan meadows
during Katian times; in areas protected from siliciclastic input, they reached massive and bedded bioaccumulations (Khabt-el-Hajar Formation). The Hirnantian glaciation controlled the incision of numerous tunnel channels, infilled with both alluvial to fluvial sediments and glaciomarine diacmictites. The Hirnantian palaeorelief was definitively sealed during Silurian times.
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