The Second International Congress on the Permian and Triassic, coinciding with the Eighth Meeting of the Moroccan Permian and Triassic Group, ICPT2-GMPT8, was held at the Ben M’sik Faculty of Sciences in Casablanca, from 25 to 27 April 2018. More than 60 international researchers participated in this congress: Morocco, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, England, Mexico.

The first two days were devoted to plenary lectures and oral communications grouped into 5 sessions. We were thus able to attend:

• 4 plenary lectures led by internationally renowned researchers: Sylvie BOURQUIN (Rennes, France) on “Late Permian to Middle Triassic sedimentation at the western peri-Tethyan domain: comparison between European and North African basins”, Jonathan REDFERN (Manchester, England) on “Assessing the contribution of local versus regional drainage systems on the provenance of Upper Triassic fluvial deposits, Morocco”, Jörg SCHNEIDER (Freiberg, Germany) on “Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic continental biota of Morocco—a state-of-the-art summary” and Nassreddine YOUBI (Marrakech, Morocco) on “The Permian and Triassic-Jurassic Large Igneous Provinces of Morocco: Current State of Knowledge and Future Research Directions”,
• 30 oral communications distributed in 5 sessions: Palynology, paleoenvironments and paleoclimates (session 1), Paleontology, biostratigraphy and paleoenvironments (session 2), Sedimentary basins and geodynamics (session 3), Mineralization (session 4), Magmatism and geochronology (session 5),
• 20 posters.

A round table discussion was held at the end of the second day of the congress, during which debates took place on different aspects of this specific period of the Earth’s history, in particular on paleoenvironmental, paleogeographic, paleoecological reconstructions, the Permian-Triassic transition in the terrestrial domain, paleoecological data or the importance of CAMP volcanism.

The third day was devoted to an excursion in the coastal Triassic basin of Berrechid-ElGara-Benslimane-Mohammedia, guided by Abdelkrim AFENZAR and Rachid ESSAMOUD, (Hassan II University of Casablanca) with the participation of 27 attendees.

This special issue gathers works carried out on the Triassic basins on both sides of the Atlantic margin, presented during this ICPT2-GMPT8 congress, addressing different geosciences themes:

• Afenzar A. & Essamoud R.—Sedimentological and sequence stratigraphy analyses of the syn-rift Triassic series of the Mohammedia-Benslimane-ElGara-Berrechid basin (Moroccan Meseta).
• García-Ávila M., Mercedes-Martín R., Juncal M. & Diez J.B.—New palynological data in Muschelkalk facies of the Catalan Coastal Ranges (NE of the Iberian Peninsula).
• El Hachimi H., Youbi N., Madeira J., Marzoli A., Mata J., Bertrand H., Bensalah M. K., Boumehdi M. A., Doblas M., Medina F., Ben Abbou M. & Martins L.—Physical volcanology and emplacement mechanism of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) lava flows from the Central High Atlas, Morocco.
• Juncal M. A., Diez J. B., De la Horra R., Barrenechea J. F., Borruel-Abadía V. & López-Gómez J.—State of the Art of Triassic Palynostratigraphical Knowledge of the Cantabrian Mountains (N Spain).
• Khalloufi B. & Jalil N.-J.—Overview of the Late Triassic (Carnian) actinopterygian fauna from the Argana Basin (Morocco).
• Villanueva-Amadoz U., Gerwert Navarro M., Juncal M. A. & Diez J. B.—Paleobotanical and Palynological Evidence for the Age of the Matzitzi Formation, Mexico.

We would like to thank the editors of the Mersennes group for their editorial assistance for the preparation of these articles for Comptes Rendus Geoscience of the Académie des Sciences, the reviewers of these articles, as well as all the participants in the Casablanca Congress and especially those who allowed sharing their scientific advances in this thematic issue.

Sylvie Bourquin

Associated Editor

France

sylvie.bourquin@univ-rennes1.fr

Rachid Essamoud

President of GMPT, Invited Editor

Morocco

rachid.essamoud@univh2c.ma