Kem Kem Group

The Kem Kem Group, often called the Kem Kem beds, is a geological group exposed along an escarpment on the Algeria-Morocco border in the Kem Kem region of eastern Morocco, within the Er Rachidia and Tafilalt areas, spanning central and eastern Morocco north and south of the Pre-African Trough. Its strata date to the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, roughly 100 to 95 million years ago, and comprise two units, the lower Gara Sbaa Formation of fine to medium grained sandstone and the upper Douira Formation of fining upward, coarse to fine grained sandstones interbedded with siltstones. The group represents freshwater and estuarine deltaic deposits formed in a tropical environment, later submerged by the sea during the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event, which left marine strata overlying the older terrestrial beds.