Discovering mysterious Middle Jurassic dinosaurs in Morocco

High in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains a rare cache of dinosaur fossils is opening a window right into a little-known interval in our planet’s historical past.

The Middle Jurassic is a key second within the evolution of the dinosaurs, seeing them evolve from small, two-legged animals into an enormous range of kinds. However, as a lot of the world was underwater on the time, fossils from these land-based animals are extraordinarily uncommon.

Rocks of the proper age are solely present in small outcrops dotted the world over in international locations such because the UK, China and Madagascar. Recently, a brand new web site has been revealed close to the Moroccan city of Boulemane the place our palaeontologists have helped to explain two extraordinary dinosaurs.

In 2023, our scientists returned to the location, together with colleagues from the world over, to dig deeper into Morocco’s Middle Jurassic. Our Senior Researcher Professor Susannah Maidment, who led the expedition, says that the area is extremely wealthy in fossils from that point, together with dinosaurs which can be not like any others on Earth.

“While Morocco is incredibly famous for its palaeontology, it’s mostly known for more recent dinosaurs like Spinosaurus,” Susannah explains. “Its Middle Jurassic hasn’t been investigated before, and we’re already finding that its dinosaurs from this time are very unusual.”

“By studying this region, we’re putting northern Morocco and the Atlas Mountains on the palaeontology map. In the future, I’m hoping this will be another amazing site in the country that scientists and tourists will want to visit.”

Dinosaur detectives

Hints of the location’s existence first got here a number of years in the past, once we acquired uncommon stegosaur bones from a Cambridge fossil seller, which have been later described as Adratiklit.

“The bones were labelled as being from the Middle Jurassic of Boulemane, which I was a bit sceptical of,” Susannah recollects. “Stegosaurs are best known from later in the Jurassic, so a Middle Jurassic date would make this a very early representative of the group.”

“But when I started to look up the geology of the area, I realised that the dating seemed to fit, and that this could be a really important stegosaur.”

As remoted bones, the fossils had misplaced a number of the contextual info {that a} researcher would usually discover after they dig them up from a web site – details about its surroundings, the way it was preserved and the way its bones fitted collectively.

To affirm this actually was a Middle Jurassic stegosaur, discovering the place the bones initially got here from was very important. There have been no vertebrate palaeontologists in Morocco on the time, so Susannah started tracing their journey again from the UK to their dig web site.

“I really wanted to find the place where the specimen had been dug up, but it was a bit of a long shot,” Susannah admits. “However, with the help of a colleague, we effectively worked our way back along the commercial supply chain to the man who dug it out of the ground. He allowed me to study the geology of the local area.”

Helping Susannah in her quest was Professor Driss Ouarhache, a Moroccan scientist from the Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah (USMBA) who specialises within the geology of the area.

“This site is one of the most important fossil sites in Morocco, and may even be the most important,” Driss says. “It is rich in fossils of many different dinosaurs, and you can find fossils on the ground almost everywhere without having to dig.”

Following Susannah’s first go to to the location, it was clear that it was one thing particular. It turned much more attention-grabbing after we acquired one other fossil from the identical web site.

It was a rib bone with spikes fused to it – a situation unknown in some other animal, residing or lifeless. While Susannah had thought that it may also be from Adratiklit at first, analysis revealed it was truly from an unknown ankylosaur, later named Spicomellus.

Spicomellus is the oldest identified ankylosaur, and a really unusual one at that, so Susannah put collectively a staff to search out out extra about this dinosaur. After the primary try was referred to as off as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, Susannah and her fellow scientists lastly made it out to Boulemane in April 2023.

Moving mountains

Perched greater than 2,000 metres up on the facet of a mountain, the terrain surrounding the dig web site doesn’t quit its secrets and techniques simply. Much of the realm is roofed in a comfortable mudstone, the remnant of historic wetlands that when lined the panorama, which means the bottom is crumbly and inclined to slide.

The web site itself lies in a high-sided channel, which funnels flash floods and landslips via it. The evening earlier than the staff arrived, some uncovered fossils have been buried following heavy rain and have become too deep to be recovered.

The staff not solely needed to be prepared to depart on the first signal of rain, additionally they needed to be cautious as a result of the perimeters of the ridges have been vulnerable to collapse. Their first job, due to this fact, was to make the location as protected as doable earlier than the excavations might correctly start.

“After checking the area for any loose fossils, we shift all the big rubble out the way to produce a platform from where we can dig down,” says Dr Simon Wills, our Scientific Associate.

“We only had a week on this expedition, and it takes a while to get down to the fossil level.”

Due to the shortage of time, it was very important to establish essentially the most promising spots to dig early on. Bone will be distinguished from surrounding rock by its porous texture, however even consultants can have difficulties doing so within the subject. In one occasion, an initially promising object turned out to be a bone-shaped rock!

Developing Moroccan palaeontology

Such first-hand expertise was necessary for the youthful palaeontologists on the dig, reminiscent of Dr Kawtar Ech-charay. Kawtar is a part of a brand new technology of Moroccan palaeontologists and was taking part in one in all their first digs.

“I chose to become a palaeontologist because I’m passionate about my country’s geological history,” Kawtar says. “But before I started, I wasn’t even aware that Morocco had a lot of dinosaurs.”

“This country is rich in geological heritage, but it’s not been well studied to date. It’s hard to get people into the field because there aren’t the jobs, so I’m hoping that by studying and raising awareness of this site, we can start to provide those opportunities to study our geological history.”

International collaborations reminiscent of these are an more and more necessary a part of fashionable palaeontology, as researchers transfer away from ‘parachute science’ – the place scientists from elsewhere are available to do the fieldwork – in direction of native collaborations.

The University of Birmingham’s Professor Richard Butler, who’s labored with Susannah for a few years, says, “I couldn’t imagine working in a country without local collaborators. It’s hard to understand not doing so from both an ethical and logistical standpoint.”

“In Morocco, we’ve been working with local collaborators to collect fossils together, as well as working on funding applications to support the early career scientists working here. We’re also helping to develop their careers with training, some of which we’re providing right now out here in the field.”

Keeping observe of dinosaur fossils

On one facet of the channel, the staff recognized a promising seam of Middle Jurassic rocks. Over the following few days, the scientists went from pickaxes to trowels to knives and finally to brushes as they dug down, revealing a few of Spicomellus’ attribute ribs in addition to different bones they didn’t but recognise.

The places of the fossils have been rigorously famous by Dr Luke Meade, who was skilled by Richard on the University of Birmingham.

“It’s important to understand how the fossils are lying in the ground while we’re taking them out,” Luke explains. “The direction the bones are pointing or the way they’re spread out, can give us more information about how they were preserved and what was happening in an environment.”

“It also allows us to say if the bones are associated with each other. In this case, we’re very confident all the Spicomellus remains come from the same individual.”

Once they’d eliminated the bones, the staff rapidly lined them in plaster jackets. They additionally made certain the contents have been documented and numbered in order that when the jackets have been re-opened they’d know precisely the place within the web site the fossils have been from.

The fossils have been then loaded into the staff’s jeeps for the following stage of their 165-million-year journey and pushed to USMBA.

What was discovered on the dig?

After arriving at Driss’s lab, the staff laid out their fossil finds collectively for the primary time. It was solely then that they appreciated the extraordinary range of their discoveries, from new bones of Spicomellus to the fossils of stegosaurs, sauropods and rather more.

“When we walked in the door at Driss’s lab and saw all the incredible Spicomellus material laid out, I think everybody was gobsmacked,” remembers Susannah.

“I just kept picking things up and I didn’t know what they were. It’s just an incredible feeling to know that you have this discovery that no human has ever seen before, which has the potential to fundamentally change our understanding of the diversity of the armoured dinosaurs.”

Studying them, nevertheless, needed to wait. First, the fossils wanted to be ready – cleaned, stabilised and extracted from the rock surrounding them. It’s a time-consuming and complicated process that the lab in Morocco didn’t have the services for in 2023.

Instead, the staff have been in a position to get funding to ship Kawtar and fellow Moroccan PhD scholar Ahmed Oussou to Egypt to be skilled in fossil preparation and to purchase the tools for a brand new preparation lab at USMBA.

With assist from skilled preparator Alison Park from Emanya Preparation and Conservation, a preparation firm that specialises in vertebrate fossils, the team was able to reconstruct Spicomellus’s appearance for a 2025 paper.

A Moroccan museum?

All the fossils present in Boulemane by the staff now kind a part of USMBA’s fossil assortment and are meant for public show sooner or later. It’s hoped these fossils will probably be a catalyst to encourage extra Moroccans to change into palaeontologists and to extend alternatives for them.

“At the moment, vertebrate palaeontology isn’t well developed in this country,” Driss says. “But given recent discoveries and growing interest from the international community, it’s important that Moroccans take the initiative to study their own heritage.”

“Eventually, we’d like to open a museum and a fossil laboratory to inspire future generations. One of the ideas is to exhibit these discoveries but also leave some in a facility at the site so that the public can see them in situ.”

As worldwide consideration is drawn to the area, it’s hoped funding will observe. At the second, a big a part of the native financial system is pushed by the fossil commerce, with many individuals relying on promoting fossils to outlive.

By creating new financial alternatives via scientific examine and tourism, it’s hoped that fossils that might as soon as have been offered will be made accessible to researchers. One plan is to have the realm declared a geopark by UNESCO to recognise its “internationally significant geology”.

“There are only two geoparks in Africa at present, but I hope this will become the third,” Kawtar says. “It would be terrific and help to drive further investment in transport to make the region easier to access. This would help everyone who lives here and hopefully protect the fossils as well.”

In the meantime, there’s nonetheless much more fossils collected from Boulemane which can be nonetheless to be studied. The staff predict much more discoveries to come back out of USMBA’s assortment over the following few years and are already planning a return journey.

“We’ve got a lot of research planned with the team out in Morocco,” Susannah says. “It’s all helping to build capacity for palaeontology in the region and give Kawtar and Ahmed the skills that will hopefully secure them jobs.”

“Eventually, I’m hoping they’ll be running their own research groups and taking the lead on investigating the extraordinary geological history of their country.”