North of Kuwait Bay, where the Jal Al-Zour escarpment drops away in layers of red clay and calcareous sandstone, the “Kuwait Geopark” project has opened: an open-air natural museum with no roof and no ticket window.
What the specialists say about it
The head of the Kuwait Geosciences Society, Dr Mubarak Al-Hajri, described it as the richest site in Kuwait in natural, scientific and cultural value, because it holds three things together in one place: rare geological formations, traces of ancient human settlement, and biological diversity.
The story the rocks tell
The area was once submerged under the sea, and then went through successive climatic changes in which sea level fell across the ages. The rocks record the shifting depositional environments and their link to the last ice age on Earth, around ten thousand years ago. Traces of human settlement in the area go back more than eight thousand years.
The site also holds migratory birds, plants and animals, and the story of the discovery of oil and the beginning of the country’s energy industry.
The detail that catches the eye
Some of the terrain resembles the surface of Mars closely enough to make it usable for studies simulating the red planet’s surface. Beyond that it is an open-air scientific laboratory for geology, ecology, biology, wildlife, archaeology and anthropology.
If you want to take part
The Kuwait Geosciences Society has opened volunteering for work on the project, and provides the necessary training to anyone whose application is accepted before assigning them tasks. Priority goes to society members.
Photo: tilted rock layers in a cliff. By Sam Swanson, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, on the opening of the Kuwait Geopark project, and remarks by the head of the Kuwait Geosciences Society, Dr Mubarak Al-Hajri, to KUNA.
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