Oil and gas is the mainstay of Sultanate’s economy, followed by tourism thanks to the myriad of natural formations across the country. It is also known for the presence of meteorite rocks, with many said to be lying in its vast stretches of desert. Of late, concerns have been expressed over how the private collectors have been smuggling meteorites — a precious piece of rock — in the open market. Most buyers enter Oman through land borders as tourists. Hence, the geological groups, while waiting for a law to be enacted to combat smuggling of meteorite rocks, have called for preserving this wealth through heavy fines for smugglers.
On the other hand, the task of safeguarding this precious wealth from the clutches of smugglers was transferred to the Ministry of Heritage and Culture recently. It was earlier under the Public Authority for Mining.
The latest responsibility is a huge one for the ministry as Oman is one of the richest countries in terms of the lunar (moon) meteorites and martian (Mars) meteorites found within its territory.
“Of the 14,775 meteorites found in the central Oman mountains, just four have been identified as lunar and 11 martian as of June 2014,” according to Dr Mohammed al Kindi, Head of the Geo Consultancy Centre.
In the Najd region of Jabal Samhan, more than 1,782 meteorites have been discovered, including 64 lunar and four martian.
Meteorites have a high economic value as they help provide information about the early history of the solar system, (accumulation of particles into a massive object through gravitational power), age of the solar system and chemical constitution of our planets.
They are a piece of debris from a comet, asteroid or meteoroid that originate in outer space and survive its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon.
Most meteoroids disintegrate when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Some make an impact in the form of craters.
Found in large numbers and types, meteorites weigh thousands of grams.
Oman is No 3 in the world in terms of the presence of this rich wealth. In 2011, the Sultanate accounted for 14 per cent of all the world’s meteorite finds, excluding Antarctica.
The Dhofar and Al Wusta Governorates, especially areas like Jiddat al Harasis, Al Huqf, Jiddat Arkad, Shalim, Sayh al Uhaymir and Ramlat As’Samaha yielded more than 3,600 meteorites as against 1,805 in 2007.
Hot desert meteorite finds amount to 25 per cent of the total number of known samples. They are the second source of meteorites after Antarctica, which accounts for 70 per cent of the total Meteoritic Bulletin Database, according to Meteoritical Society, whose latest documented meteoric findings in Oman was in 2015.
“The meteorite recovery areas are mainly restricted to the flat carbonate plains, where erosion and deposition since tertiary deposition have been limited and meteorites have had a chance to accumulate over prolonged periods of time. The light-coloured sandy and carbonaceous desert provides a contrast to the dark colour of meteorites. The average size of rock particles varies from a few millimetres to about 10 cm,” says Al Kindi.
According to him, the most prized are martian meteorites, which offer extremely cost-effective avenues for research on the red planet.
The early expeditions to the Sultanate were mainly done by commercial meteorite dealers and international teams of Omani and European scientists.
A number of those findings, discovered 60 to 70 years ago, were carried abroad for study purposes, with some having been displayed in natural museums in Berne and London.
Zainab al Nassri
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