Can I visit the fossil and mineral mines near Merzouga?

Yes — the abandoned Mifis mines and Erfoud’s famous fossil workshops make a popular half-day 4x4 excursion.

The Sahara here was once a sea, and Erfoud’s workshops cut 400-million-year-old ammonites and trilobites into everything from museum pieces to souvenirs. The Mifis barite mines add a stark industrial-archaeology chapter to the desert story.