High quality, well-documented specimens collected under geographic and stratigraphic control, are fundamental to solid research. We go out and collect such specimens, in Belgium and Morocco. But what is the connection between these countries?

During the Devonian both countries  belonged to different palaeocontinents: Belgium belonged to Laurussia and Morocco to Gondwana. These were separated by the Rheic Ocean. The shallower continental shelve environments were home to highly diversified trilobite faunas. From the trilobite's point of view, these regions marked the boundaries of their natural habitats. So by researching Belgian and Moroccan trilobites, we are quite literally fishing in the same pond.

There are many resemblances between the faunas of both regions but there are also differences. Some trilobite taxa had a small geographic range and lived just on a particular spot whereas others occupied larger areas. There was competition, predation and succession. Each individual trilobite specimen, each particular species, is but a small puzzle in a large story of evolution and extinction, continental drift and climate shifts we have yet to comprehend fully.

Some environments were subjected to series of rapid sediment deposition, often in catastrophic events, burying sealife alive. There so-called turbidites are visible as banks of solid limestone; in many cases they are alternated with softer shales and claystones. Trilobites in turbidites are often complete, and each of the subsequent layers demonstrate slight or sometimes drastic variations in trilobite fauna. In the arid mountainous regions of the Moroccan Anti-Atlas these layers can be observed in the landscape and easily be reached. In the Belgian Ardennes, it is often difficult to find such turbidites, since most of the terrain is covered by thick soil and vegetation, is private or otherwise not accessible (e.g. because it lies within a conservation area).