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The Moroccan Central High Atlasic mud-mounds correspond to carbonate sponge–algal buildups developed in open marine conditions towards the Lower–Upper Sinemurian boundary. The structures gradually increase in size through time, from the small-sized lenses included in the Idikel coarse-bedded Lower Sinemurian grainstones to the high domes observed in the succeeding Aberdouz and Ouchbis Upper Sinemurian thin-bedded mudstones. The biological communities (mainly algae, sponges, thrombolites, stromatolites, annelids, bryozoans, brachiopods, pelecypods, gastropods, echinoderms, corals and scarce foraminifera) comprise common, well conserved remains in the rising core frameworks and small reworked bioclasts in the surrounding sedimentary depressions. These buildups are closely linked to tectonic processes as they grew on the normal synsedimentary faults which affected the central Atlasic area during the Lower Liassic period, leading to the breakup of the Early Sinemurian carbonate platform and the resultant initiation of the Upper Sinemurian subsiding basin. Silting conditions under hernipelagic sedimentation led to their death. Similar palaeogeographic changes and geodynamic evolution have been described recently from different structures in North Africa, Western Europe and North America. |
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