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The Distribution, Composition, And Formation Of Sahara Desert Microbialites From The Base Of The Meski Plateau, Outside Erfoud, Morocco, Sean Faulkner
The Distribution, Composition, And Formation Of Sahara Desert Microbialites From The Base Of The Meski Plateau, Outside Erfoud, Morocco, Sean Faulkner
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
Seven distinctly different museum-quality concretionary morphotypes of elongate, spheroidal, banded, botryoidal, columnar, rosette, and speleothem in regolith at two small sites at the base of the Meski Plateau near Erfoud, Morocco are described. Although most are isolated hand samples, the largest concretions are meter-sized blocks. Not one sample resembles any surrounding outcrop or bedrock. The barite rosettes formed first via periodic mixing of Ba2+/SO42- saturated solutions. They provided nuclei for cyclical precipitation-based concentric concretion development. The speleothem formed via precipitation from a carbonate-saturated solution in a large void within porous sandstone. The sand concretions formed when calcite precipitated around grains …