Research Program: Biological ground water survey of the Sultanate of Oman. List of sampling stations March-April 1996

The Sultanate of Oman is an arid country, forming the south-eastern margin of the Arabian peninsula, with coast lines on the Gulf of Oman in the north-east and the Arabian Sea in the south-east. In the interior, it is bordered on the Emirates in the north-west, Saudi-Arabia in the west, and Yemen in the south-east. Although today large parts of the Sultanate are formed by hot desert, this has not always been the case in its geological history. The occurrence of huge karst caves shows that precipitation must have been much higher in the past. On the other hand, ancient glacial deposits show that it lay closer to the South Pole some 600 million years (My) and again 300 My ago.