Fossil Hunting in Morocco

[LordWampa]

Hello, welcome to my report of this last week fossil hunting in Morocco. I have been this last week in Morocco going to different localities looking for fossils. As I have never done fossil hunting before in morocco, I contacted with Mohand Ihmadi from Ihmadi Trilobites Centre, a local geologist that does fossil hunting tours. I talked to him about all the localities that I would like to visit and we planned a route together. If you ever want to do some fossil hunting in Morocco, I have to recommend getting in touch with Mohand, if you search for him or the center in google, the contact information will appear.

 

I will try to divide this fossil hunting in the main 4 areas that we hunted:

 

KEM KEM BEDS

 

This location is near the dunes, and going there you will have beautiful views.

 

 

Once you arrive there, you will start seeing the typical Kem Kem colors.

 

 

First you can try to find microfossils filtering the sand.

 

 

We also found some workers there, and they let us visit the caves they make to arrive to the layer where they find the fossils.

 

 

 

Here is me and my dad in front of the cave entrance.

 

 

And here more photos inside the cave:

 

 

 

In Kem Kem it's very difficult to find the stuff you see online so the normal thing is to find some micro fossils or chunks. This is what we found in and hour or so:

 

Probably if you search harder and during more time, you can find more stuff, but we were more casual about this. And obviously, you can also try to buy the stuff the workers have found.

 

ORDOVICIAN LOCALITY FOR CALYMENE

 

Another locality we visited, was a trilobite locality. A ordovician Locality.

 

Here, with heavy machinery, they extract the first useless layer, and then you can start to manually search for the trilobites.

 

 

 

Here, we found several as it's pretty easy. One of them is this next photo:

 

 

DEVONIAN TRILOBITE LOCATION

 

The other trilobite location was a devonian one. There you can find phacops sp. pretty easily and if you are lucky some other species. Here is the typical limestone where you have to break them, find the trilobite, glued back and prepared it.

 

 

 

 

After this, we went to Mohand workshop and he teached me how to prepare them:

 

 

 

 

 

We were lucky and found a Paralejurus spatuliformis that he is preparing for me and will send to me.

 

OUED ZEM FORMATION

 

The last stop was the Oued Zem formation. It's the formation where we found most fossils, and it's easy to work with the hammer and find it. It's near the phosphates exploitation ground. 

 

And here some of what we found:

 

 

We visited some more places, but this were the main ones.

 

In conclusion it was an amazing experience and Mohand was the best guide we could have asked for. If you are planning a similar trip to Morocco and have some doubts or questions don't hesitate to ask.

 

And just as an extra. As we all know, all the Moroccan material has a reputation of being restored, composited and altered. And while that is sometimes true, after visiting this places and talking to the diggers there, I bought some pieces from them, without the intermediaries, and they were really honest about what reparations or things they did to the piece. So my conclusion is that a lot of times the international dealers are the ones buying pieces without caring about the state of this ones because a composited/restored piece will be cheaper and they think it will sell at the same price and will make more profit.

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by LordWampa

[Tidgy's Dad]

Great report and very interesting.

I didn't realize that access to the phosphate deposits was so easy. 

And I agree that most of the diigers and local dealers are honest and fair, but people further up the chain are sometimes unscrupulous or poorly informed. 

Very glad you had such a successful visit. 

[BirdsAreDinosaurs]

Thanks, great report, looks like an awesome experience and very interesting to see pictures from these locations! 

 

I always wondered how safe those caves in the Kem Kem beds are. In the few pictures I have seen, nobody is wearing helmets or other protective gear. Do you (or anyone else) have any idea about the safety of the workers? Are these caves pretty stable or do accidents happen regularly? Do the workers feel safe and what precautions are taken to avoid accidents?

 

I do not want to lower the enthousiasm, but I just feel this is very relevant to know for all people that buy Kem Kem fossils.

[caterpillar]

Thanks for sharing.

It's always great to see pics of the outcrops

[Fossildude19]

Wonderful report and finds!

Thanks for "bringing us along."

[LordWampa]

2 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Great report and very interesting.

I didn't realize that access to the phosphate deposits was so easy. 

And I agree that most of the diigers and local dealers are honest and fair, but people further up the chain are sometimes unscrupulous or poorly informed. 

Very glad you had such a successful visit. 

Yes, the access to the phosphates it's pretty easy, but we went with a local oued zem fossil worker that knew what area is "free" to entera and nice, because as he told us every time they change the area where they are working and closing and opening new areas. And he pointed us to a nice area that we could easily enter and that the level that you can find fossils was already in the surface. I think that if you go alone it might be difficult to find a good area.

[LordWampa]

1 hour ago, BirdsAreDinosaurs said:

Thanks, great report, looks like an awesome experience and very interesting to see pictures from these locations! 

 

I always wondered how safe those caves in the Kem Kem beds are. In the few pictures I have seen, nobody is wearing helmets or other protective gear. Do you (or anyone else) have any idea about the safety of the workers? Are these caves pretty stable or do accidents happen regularly? Do the workers feel safe and what precautions are taken to avoid accidents?

 

I do not want to lower the enthousiasm, but I just feel this is very relevant to know for all people that buy Kem Kem fossils.

 

Yes, I have no problem in talking about this. Because for me, a part from hunting for fossils, I wanted to educate myself on how the morocco fossil trade kind of works. In the case of the caves in kem kem it works this way. There is no big company, every worker is a "freelancer". Each one of them digs his own cave and as it's a lot of work to dig the cave, they normally don't share them. There is no big architect or engineer that checks the cave, it's just manual work and trying to make the ceiling with a curve so it's more stable. I have to say, that when I was inside the caves I felt that it was pretty stable. At least I asked about this and they said that accidents are reaally rare, that normally when they feel a cave is not save they just close it. And it's true that I saw some closed caves. And for what I was told, depending on the worker, some workers if they live nearby, they come and go every day, others stay living there in a tend the whole week and come back home once a week with what they have. I have to say that I can't imagine the conditions there in summer when it gets really hot. I will just say that with 10 min in the cave I had enough and they have to be there hours.

 

I don't want to open a political debate, but for me this is similar to all the other international business that operate in a poorer country (aka: clothing companies or similar). The base worker is the one who does the hard job and in awful conditions. And they get paid little and the middleman is the one who makes all the money. I have to say that they are not stupid and a lot of them knows the value of things, so they will ask you the price considering what is being paid overseas. But obviously it will be waaaaay less.

 

So yes, when buying kem kem fossils, or moroccan fossils in general (but kem kem the most) there are some ethics you have to consider as if you buy some new sneakers.

[BirdsAreDinosaurs]

8 minutes ago, LordWampa said:

 

Yes, I have no problem in talking about this. Because for me, a part from hunting for fossils, I wanted to educate myself on how the morocco fossil trade kind of works. In the case of the caves in kem kem it works this way. There is no big company, every worker is a "freelancer". Each one of them digs his own cave and as it's a lot of work to dig the cave, they normally don't share them. There is no big architect or engineer that checks the cave, it's just manual work and trying to make the ceiling with a curve so it's more stable. I have to say, that when I was inside the caves I felt that it was pretty stable. At least I asked about this and they said that accidents are reaally rare, that normally when they feel a cave is not save they just close it. And it's true that I saw some closed caves. And for what I was told, depending on the worker, some workers if they live nearby, they come and go every day, others stay living there in a tend the whole week and come back home once a week with what they have. I have to say that I can't imagine the conditions there in summer when it gets really hot. I will just say that with 10 min in the cave I had enough and they have to be there hours.

 

I don't want to open a political debate, but for me this is similar to all the other international business that operate in a poorer country (aka: clothing companies or similar). The base worker is the one who does the hard job and in awful conditions. And they get paid little and the middleman is the one who makes all the money. I have to say that they are not stupid and a lot of them knows the value of things, so they will ask you the price considering what is being paid overseas. But obviously it will be waaaaay less.

 

So yes, when buying kem kem fossils, or moroccan fossils in general (but kem kem the most) there are some ethics you have to consider as if you buy some new sneakers.

 

Thanks a lot, that's very informative and helpful!

 

I agree that it sounds pretty similar to other industries. Pretty complicated ethical issues. Very unfortunate that there is no regulation regarding worker safity and fair pricing.

[Fossilcollector88]

A year late, but very interesting post. Question: What were the costs of such a trip? Excluding flight ticket and hotel stay ofcourse, as that can vary. 

[LordWampa]

On 4/27/2024 at 10:17 PM, Fossilcollector88 said:

A year late, but very interesting post. Question: What were the costs of such a trip? Excluding flight ticket and hotel stay ofcourse, as that can vary. 

 

I guess you are interested to know how much would be the "fossil hunting pack" I guess? I don't remember exactly the total but I know that Mohand charges 65e/day per group up to 5 people for fossil hunting. So from that you can do some calculations, If you have some idea of what you want to do you can talk to him and arrange a price for the package. So if I remember more or less as I had a total of 5 days of fossil hunting I paid around 300e I think. At least in my opinion for what it offers it's not pricey and if you go as a couple or group the price per person is incredibly cheap. And as he is also a Geologist and you can learn a lot.

 

My recommendation is that if you want to do some kind of fossil hunting in morocco contact him as it's better than other companies arranged tours as you can do a tailor-made schedule that adapts to what you prefer more. Maybe you want to spend more time with trilobites or you prefer goniatites or spend more time at kem kem, etc.

 

If you have any more specific questions feel free to PM me.

 

[Joss]

Thanks for that interesting posting. I was planning of going to Morocco for fossil hunting. I knew of places in the Atlas Mountains, like Erfoud, but not Oued Zem, a much closer place to Casablanca. I’m not into tours: is it possible to be more autonomous and locate that phosphate quarry in Oued Zem, a big town in itself?

[Fossilcollector88]

8 minutes ago, Joss said:

Thanks for that interesting posting. I was planning of going to Morocco for fossil hunting. I knew of places in the Atlas Mountains, like Erfoud, but not Oued Zem, a much closer place to Casablanca. I’m not into tours: is it possible to be more autonomous and locate that phosphate quarry in Oued Zem, a big town in itself?

ihmadi Trilobites Center mentions they can bring you there.

Edited May 5 by Fossilcollector88
Grammar

[LordWampa]

30 minutes ago, Joss said:

Thanks for that interesting posting. I was planning of going to Morocco for fossil hunting. I knew of places in the Atlas Mountains, like Erfoud, but not Oued Zem, a much closer place to Casablanca. I’m not into tours: is it possible to be more autonomous and locate that phosphate quarry in Oued Zem, a big town in itself?

Obviously I talk from experience and I can be wrong, I have gone to Morocco another time this year and I again went to the quarries with Mohand from Ihmadi trilobites center for various reasons. The first is that the quarries are not as easy to find, and at least I couldn't find any info in the internet when I was doing the research prior to my first travel. And when going back, I still wouldn't go alone.

 

The second one is that each quarry is different, some is public, some is semiprivate where local people rent heavy machinery to help them, etc.

 

For example, in kem kem the diggers dig their own tunnels, I wouldn't enter without their permission, and oued zem (the place you want to go) I think is one of the worst places to go alone as the land is shared with the phosphate mining and I am not sure how the diggers share the land. So you could end in some kind of trouble invading private property and trying to explain yourself.

 

So in general except in puntual cases where you are an expert and have a lot of experience in fossil digging and know people in Morocco I wouldn't go alone. In the best case scenario you will just lose time trying to find the quarries.

 

That said, at least in my opinion going with Mohand (I can't talk about other guides) is not as going in a tour, is far from that. He is a geologist and will go with you to where you want to go without any trick or tourist trap. And fir example I went to kem kem and after we went to visit a local dealer that would be impossible to find without him.

 

And to be clear, I travel a lot and I hate tours and 99% never take one. But this is the case where I think is essential, and any way you would be going alone for the fossil hunting, you would not be going with a tour group.

 

Edited May 5 by LordWampa