Geo-heritage and Conservation

Abstract

Eastern Arabia includes some of the most iconic landscapes on Earth from the Oman–UAE Mountains to the vast sand deserts of the Rub al-Khali. The coastline of Musandam with its drowned fjords, steep sea cliffs and rugged mountains is unique. Several isolated sandsea regions including the Wahiba (Sharkiyah) sands, the red dunes of the Emirates, and the ancient fossilized dunes of the aeolinite coast along the Indian Ocean coastline are also unique and spectacular. The Precambrian salt domes of the Gulf islands off Abu Dhabi and those in the central Oman Fahud and Ghaba salt basins are geologically important. The most important geological sites are those along the northern mountains where the World’s largest and best exposed ophiolite is magnificently preserved. These rocks show a unique profile down through 20 km of the Late Cretaceous oceanic crust and upper mantle that is by far the best preserved such ophiolite anywhere in the World. The mountains of Jebel Akhdar and Saih Hatat expose a spectacular stratigraphic profile from the pre-Permian basement rocks up through Permian and Mesozoic limestones and dolomites of the Arabian shelf carbonates. These rocks hold most of the oil and gas reserves in the Arabian Peninsula foreland, from Saudi Arabia through the UAE to Oman. The Oman-UAE mountains is the only place where these rocks are exposed, along numerous wadis that cut across the strike, where they can be studied in detail.