El complejo arrecifal del Mioceno superior de Tazouta (SE de Fez, Marruecos): Paleontología, paleoambientes y paleogeografía

Abstract

An analysis based on the study of corals, coralline algae, accompanying fauna and microfacies allowed to define, in the Tazouta reef complexe (south east of Fes; Morocco), a marine platform characterized by a varied and complete paleoenvironmental spectrum (from the sub-littoral environment to the reef front one).

On a paleogeographic level, three reef regions have been evidenced: a septentrional reef region where the paleoenvironmental spectrum is complete and where the biosedimentary dynamic was very varied in space and time, a central reef region where the environments were monotonnous and of an internal platform type and finally a meridional reef region exclusively characterising a reef wall. This north-south paleoenvironmental polarity was probaly and partly controlled by the irregular marine substrate which, in this region of Tazouta and since the first phases of reef bioconstructions, was marked by a deltaic marine front with fan-shaped lobes