Western Qatar

This week's ramble was more of a GPS car treasure hunt, which was slightly disappointing from a rambling point of view, but well worth the effort in other ways. The object was to locate certain 'earth caches' which for those interested can be logged by answering a series of questions. Mark, Alain and I opted out of all work-sheet based activities and simply soaked up the sights and enjoyed learning from the experts who luckily were in our team.

The first stop was at Zekreet Pedestals, where limestone makes some interesting formations as softer rock erodes.

From there we drove on to a meteor crater near Dukhan. It is believed that a meteorite fell here in the 1940's but the crater was only found relatively recently, when people began to look into stories told by aging Bedouins. In 1989 a piece of meteorite was found in the area. The GoogleEarth picture definitely suggests crater. (If you want to find it on GoogleEarth, the grid ref is: N 25 24.021 E 050 50.471)

At the time of the impact, the area was swamp, so there is not a big crater-like hole. However, the outer ripple of the crater was clear to see, as it is in the satellite photo. In the centre, there is a sudden profusion of plant-life - lots of little scrubby shrubs. This is apparently due to the meteorite's fall into the swamp, which caused a ripple out, then just like a stone dropped into water, a splash up. What splashed up was richer soil from deeper ground - hence the plants.

Standing in the crater, we were 8m below sea-level, which seemed rather odd in such a dry place. But there was a dampness just beneath the top crust of the sand. The (brackish) water-table is very high here and the area is prone to flooding.

By now, I was getting into the four-wheel driving, beginning to enjoy the heavy drag through the sand with soft sideways slippage. The car definitely isn't made for super heavy-duty off-road, but it was fine for this, and we topped out over the rim of the crater with what I can only immodestly call ease and control. OK, so it wasn't that high, but still....

Next, we headed towards the petroleum fields, trying to find access through to the beach. Signposts announced cheery things like 'Stripping Plant', 'De-gassing plant' and 'Sewage treatment works'. Pipelines criss-crossed the landscape. The 'beautiful' beach was strewn with litter, but we settled down for a lazy lunch. Walking away from the sea, you could hear the oil flowing through the pipes.

So today I've stood on oil and 8m under the sea. Not bad.