The discovery of marine fossils in Morocco ends a scientific debate that lasted for centuries and centuries

Magda Ait Lektaoui - Rabat

But it cost scientists a long path of scientific research before the discovery of a recent discovery of the fossils of a marine creature called "Stalofores" in the south-eastern Morocco, a scientific controversy that lasted for 150 years.

A team of Moroccan and foreign scientists was able to identify the group that belongs to Stellofores, explaining that it is invertebrates, specifically from the branch of "marine hedgehogs", raising any scientific confusion that was considered the extinct organism of the vertebrate group.

The absence of well-preserved fossils at the sediment level for a century and a half has puzzled scientists. However, finding the remains of soft tissue from this animal, which lived on the sea level 500 million years ago for the first time in the world in southeastern Morocco, opened the eyes of geologists to New scientific facts.

"Steelofures" .. The predecessor of sea urchins
In this regard, the doctor at the University of Cadi Ayyad in Marrakech Khadija Al-Hariri told Al-Jazeera Net that 18 kilometers from the city of Zakoura Khayyim, a research team of scientists and researchers has been present for 30 days in which they have explored numerous and varied fossils "reserved in an ideal and exceptional manner" Which ranges in size between one half and three centimeters.

The Moroccan scientist, who was part of the research team, explained that advanced scientific research has helped to end the puzzlement of scientists about the extension in the body of Stellofores, which for decades was thought to be a tail of bones and thus belonging to a group of vertebrates.

The soft tissue of the marine organism, found in the Zwata area of ​​sophisticated research, confirmed that the tail was only an arm with a spinal skin used by the animal in feeding to be officially considered a branch of the "skin prickly".

The new discovery could identify the ancestors of marine organisms that lived in the tiny Moroccan Atlas area that had been inundated by the sea for millions of years, while Hariri believed that the new data would determine the beginnings of the existing marine organisms and understand their earliest origins.

Morocco .. Geological paradise
It is not easy to observe and find this marine object in the sedimentary layers in a good way, but the site of Vozwata is the exception form at the global level, according to the expression of the member of the research team discovered.

This number of scientific data has made a group of scientists and researchers at the University of Cadi Ayyad making their efforts to classify Vozwata as a national heritage site, considering it to be a UNESCO World Geological Site.

Hariri believes that this geological site is the only one on the global level that has enabled the creation of a missing link through the geological ages, which qualifies it to be a global scientific kiss.

Zacoura area - which is witnessing an intensive movement of fossil dealers who make it a source of their daily energy without any knowledge of its high scientific value - needs an urgent legal framework - according to the estimates of the spokeswoman for the island Net - in order to preserve the Moroccan geological heritage.