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Product Description
This is a spectacular, colorful asaphid trilobite with EXCEPTIONAL preservation from the famous Fezouata Formation in Morocco. The Fezouata Formation, or Fezouata Shale, is a geological formation in Morocco which dates to the Early Ordovician. It was deposited in a marine environment, and is known for its exceptionally preserved fossils, filling an important preservational window beyond the earlier and more common Cambrian Burgess shale-type deposits.
The fossils from Fezouata are known for their colorful rich red hues but the majority of them were flattened in their formation. Because of this, most lack any level of multidimensional detail. This exceptionally rare trilobite on the contrary, has dramatic and fully inflated three-dimensional form! It is complete and with full inflation and exceptional detail to all its spines and lobe anatomy. The genal spines are authentic and there is none of the usual fabrication or combination of multiple trilobite parts to make a single trilobite, as is often seen in Moroccan trilobite fossils. Only cracks were filled due to the repairs sustained from extraction, which is unavoidable in these trilobites and the nature in how they are found. A back side photo of the stone plate is shown in the images above, to demonstrate the limited repair to the trilobite. This is our last Fezouata trilobite we will be listing! For the discriminating collector who takes pride in acquiring only the best specimens, this rare large trilobite fossil from this very famous deposit, will not disappoint!
HISTORY
The fossils of Fezouata occur within an area of 500 square kilometers (190 sq mi), in southeast Morocco's Draa Valley, north of Zagora. Stratigraphically productive layers are found through a 1.1 kilometers (0.68 mi)-thick column of rock that spans the Tremadocian and Floian epochs. Over 1,500 non-mineralized specimens from the Fezouata Formation, representing 50 distinct taxa that have a composition similar to earlier Burgess Shale type biotas, have been recovered from the formations in addition to a less abundant shelly fauna.
Fossils of the Fezouata Formation, which are usually squashed flat (although some do retain some degree of their original three-dimensionality) are often coated with a dusting of pyrite, and tin; this aspect of the fossil preservation is very similar to that at Chengjiang. Non-mineralized appendages are often preserved. While the formation as a whole is over 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) thick, only two intervals, 25 meters (82 ft) and 15 meters (49 ft) thick, provide exceptional preservation. Both of these intervals are located near the top of the lower formation. The Lagerstätten were first identified in the late 1990s when a local fossil collector showed some of the finds to a PhD student who was then working in the area.