The sand cloud envelops what 500 million years ago was the bottom of a gigantic ocean. Hundreds of Moroccan flags escort the road proudly claiming a valuable heritage that normally ends up far from the borders of the kingdom of Mohamed VI . Under a quarry, the Berber choppers, rudimentary armed with the beak and shovel, work 12 hours each day on their knees in holes of more than five meters, using cloth caps and silk scarves to protect the face from suffocation from dust Anti-Atlas Above the trenches of the mountain, fossil merchants, dressed in Chinese caps and glasses, await with the eastern parsimony and more than 35 degrees their treasure.
"Most of what we get is trilobites (extinct marine arthropods from 542 million years ago that lived in waters similar to those of Antarctica) and hopefully some dinosaur jaw," explains Said , a Moroccan who has a small post of Fossil sale in the city of Erfoud, an oasis at the gates of the Sahara dunes. «I sell almost everything as souvenirs to tourists who pass through here. But then I have a warehouse where I keep dinosaur bones. They come to look for American and European wholesalers who get to pay up to 3,000 euros for a piece of tail, “adds the merchant.
We are at the global epicenter of the fossil buying and selling market. A place where humble Berber choppers, merchants, collectors, scientists, bone dealers and professional counterfeiters coexist. In Morocco almost 20,000 families live from fossil exploitation , a business that dives in a legal limbo and generates about 50 million dollars. Although almost all the money moves outside the country. A priori, there is no specific legislation for the export of geological heritage. Although, searching the archives of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, there is a decree of 1994 that restricts the export of products with a paleontological interest.
These summer days we find in Erfoud Juan Avilés , a 27-year-old geologist from Alicante - with a master's degree in vertebrate paleontology at the Complutense University of Madrid - which has the fourth website ( Jurasic Dreams ) in the world for sale of dinosaur fossils taken from Morocco. "I have the export papers, I pay taxes and I only buy from the sellers that they have their license to sell fossils," says Aviles. He wants to protect himself from some accusations of scientists protesting the intention of some importers to profit from a business that is not regulated.
«We are very critical of the sale of vertebrate fossils. For a site to form, there must be such extraordinary conditions that when it intervenes, man breaks more than he collects. Although in the case of Juan it is different because it also collaborates in a scientific way with several universities in the United States ”, says Juan Carlos Gutiérrez-Marco , paleontologist of the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), who has been traveling to Morocco for 17 years for his research . “ The absence of laws means that fossil traffic is not limited and that geological heritage is not protected. Then you see auctions all over the world where dinosaur fossils are sold and it is not known where they came from, ”criticizes the paleontologist. A clear example was what happened in Mexico in September 2017, when an auction house sold a dinosaur tail for $ 96,000. The money went to the victims of the earthquake that hit the country weeks ago. However, the Moroccan authorities claimed the fossil claiming, first, that it could be false, and then that it had left the country illegally.
«In Morocco there is no law that specifies what can be taken out. Once you cross the Atlas, most of the population seeks life with what it has, in this case with fossils. In Spain there is a view of the most conservative heritage . Other countries, such as the US, have a permissive law that allows trade. I consider that the material that is discovered and that does not have a novel character must be taken advantage of economically, in my case to continue financing my expeditions ”, defends the Alicante geologist.
In 2013 Juan Avilés invested his savings in the purchase of fossils in southern Morocco. Today on its website it sells from the teeth of a theropod dinosaur of the Upper Cretaceous (96 million years ago) for $ 257, to claws of spinosaurus for 7,000 or raptor jaws for 1,000. Account that it has 650 fixed clients, the majority North American collectors, and that invoices an average of between 6,000 and 12,000 euros per month. «Prices vary depending on the rarity of the species, the completeness of the fossil, the preserved tooth enamel, if it has breaks, the color ... All the pieces I sell are backed by a certificate of authenticity. You have to be careful because Morocco is the country where there are more fossil counterfeits, especially trilobites, ”he explains. "We have also found tibiae and femurs of spinosaurius, velociraptors ... up to 10 different species from over 90 million years ago, the last period of the time of the dinosaurs." The geologist says that one of the most expensive fossils he has sold - without wanting to reveal the price - has been a fragment of the right premaxilla of a new species of theropod carnivorous dinosaur of the Abelisaurudae family.
Another vision of this fossil trade is the paleontologist Gutiérrez-Marco: «A few years ago there was very little variety of fossils because they were sold on demand. Everything that can be sold is exploited right now, ”he says. Even on Ebay we find fossils from Morocco for sale at very low prices, such as jaws of enchodus (marine dinosaurs) for five euros. «In Morocco there are now massive excavations where only commercial fossils are sought. Some dig, others prepare them and others falsify [the counterfeits, especially of trilobites, the Moroccans call them composites, in which they mix the fossil resin with powder of the same stone from which the trilobite is made and make small molds on a silicone base]. I scientifically take advantage of those large excavations where great finds are also made. As organisms, which were thought to be extinct in the Cambrian, it turns out that they continue to exist in the Ordovician (the next geological period), as large two-meter predators that were believed to be exclusive to Canada.
At the entrance of Erfoud, a giant petrified skeleton of the tyrannosaurus rex welcomes tourists. Many visit these giant 100-square-kilometer open-air museum these days with more than 500 fossil types scattered in shops on foot of sand and in private stores to which only wealthy shoppers have access. A business that the Moroccan Government now wants to regulate with a great law protecting its rich heritage.
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