A small peninsula in the Arabian Sea
The Qatari peninsula is one of the outposts of the Arabian tectonic plate, which is slowly sinking beneath the Eurasian plate. Geographically, it lies to the east of the Arabian Desert, plunging into the Persian Gulf. It borders Saudi Arabia to the south, where it is attached to the Arabian subcontinent, but faces Bahrain on its north-western shore, just 30 km from the Qatari coast. The country is also not far from the United Arab Emirates to the south, along the coast. Without the white sand dunes of the southeast (around the Khawr al Udayd inland sea), the rock formations of the west (Mount Dukhan) and the cliffs of the north (Fuwairit), the country would be flat.
Geological features that have made its wealth
The Qatari soil is made up mainly of limestone layers and dolomite, a harder rock. The soil is rich in oil, but above all in natural gas, its main source of wealth. It is the world'snumber 1 producer, along with the United States. Its main liquefied natural gas (LNG) production site is at Ras Laffan Industrial City, 80 kilometers from Doha, and Qatar Petroleum has announced a huge new project, the North Field East LNG Project. Extracted and transported by pipelines from the production fields, it must undergo a series of treatments before it can be exploited.
The country has other geological peculiarities, mainly around Zekreet, in the far west, close to Dukhan. The erosion of limestone in this area by wind and weather creates giant geological "mushrooms". A lunar landscape evolving over time, which has inspired film directors, particularly where "Film City" has been built, a ghost town set that can be visited by 4x4. Not far away, Richard Serra has erected his monoliths lined up in the middle of the desert.
Coasts sculpted by inland seas
The winding coastline alternates between vast bays, called "khor" in Arabic, and lunar landscapes of eroded rock ("ras" in Arabic), which in places have formed small coves. In the center of the peninsula, the sea has retreated from certain areas, leaving behind vast natural basins called "Riyadh". The most fertile of these are Al-Majidah, Al-Shahaniyah and Al-Sulimi. Arable land occupies just 1.64% of the total surface area, due to the extreme aridity of the land and climate. It is a flat desert country that receives barely 70 mm of rain per year.
The absence of relief is also reflected in the shallow seabed, unlike the Iranian coast. It is not uncommon to find huge reefs or sandbanks stretching more than 50 km off the coast, which made pearl fishing easier on this coast than on the other, as it was practised in apnea at the time.
The sabkha: a unique lagoon system in the world
Due to the depressions created by the retreat of the sea in certain parts of the peninsula, Qatar is surrounded by salt pans known as Sabkha. Only aquatic plants capable of thriving in this particularly salty environment (mangroves, mangroves) grow there. These shallow basins, surrounded by elevated land, are found mainly in the south, around the inland sea. The sea enters during high tides, then evaporates, forming salt marshes. The very high temperatures eventually dry out these expanses, leaving the salt to settle on the rocks and impermeable sand.
The juxtaposition of vast shifting dunes that reach the coast, where they end up in the sea, and a large tidal bay, all set in an arid tropical environment, has no known equivalent in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. The land features include perfect crescent-shaped dunes (barkhanes) and parabolic dunes, cliff-lined "rowdat", deep valleys (wadis), plateaus (mesas), clay outcrops and karst forms, salt pans (sabkhat) and islands forming part of the bay itself. The development of these features is the result of ancient and contemporary geological and climatic processes. In the maritime part of Khor Al Udayd, represented by the passage from the narrow, deep channel to the vast, shallow basin to the north, the landscape is one of extraordinary natural beauty. No other Gulf country has such a vast lagoon system.
The area is representative of remarkable examples of ongoing landform evolution. The "sabkha", a desert surface with a salty crust, stretching from Khor to Messaied, are different from the classic sabkhas, composed of calcium carbonate and derived from the sea. In Khor Al Udayd, the sabkhas were formed in an easterly direction by the prevailing north-north-westerly "shamal" winds, which blow quartz-containing sand from the dunes. Gradually, the sand dunes cross this flat surface all the way to the sea, continuously advancing the sabkha towards the coast. As the quantity of sand available is not infinite, it is foreseeable that eventually all the sand will have reached the sea and sabkha formation will cease. For this reason, the current phenomenon is of considerable importance. The pisolites found in the area - shells covered in calcium carbonate - are the only ones to exist in a quartz sand gangue. In addition, the hypersaline groundwater in the landward parts of the sabkha contains very young dolomite crystals. Dolomite is common in ancient limestones, but this is one of the few places where it is currently precipitating below the surface around quartz sand. This makes it a unique location for the field study of the chemical processes that make this mineral, which remains one of the last largely unsolved mysteries of modern geology. What's more, a large number of "salt mounds" have recently been discovered in the area. Each is covered by a crust of salt or gypsum, which could be the remnant of the surface of an ancient basin (sabkha) corresponding to a former sea level. If so, this would be a strong sign of sea-level fluctuations during the post-Pliocene period until well into the Holocene. Raised beaches are also evidence of this phenomenon. Satellite images have recently shown that the lagoon here is gradually filling in.
Currently, tidal currents keep it open near its entrance, but if further inland the shallow marine areas fill in, the currents will diminish and the rest of the inner part could fill in entirely. A study of satellite images in the vicinity of Umm Said (Messaieed) shows an area that may, in the past, have been identical to Khor Al Udayd. The latter is an instructive outdoor study site on current geological and geomorphological processes, which indeed attracts national and international visitors, including both tourists and specialists.
Doha, geographical epicenter
The impatient Doha, in Arabic ad-Dawa, "the big tree", seems to want to grow ever faster, to the point of confusing its destiny with that of the country itself. Qatar = Doha. With 2.38 million inhabitants, slightly more than Paris itself, Doha and its suburbs concentrate 80% of the country's population over an area of around 132 km2, compared with 105 km2 for Paris, making it a relatively densely populated city. Located at the center of the peninsula's east coast, opposite Iran, the capital itself (not counting the suburban towns) has a population of just 650,000. Its historic corniche is almost 7 km long, while the coastline stretches 30 km from the artificial island of The Pearl to Lusail. A sprawling city, it develops along concentric "rings" called A, B, C, etc., some of which have since been partly erased from the map in the city's ongoing reshaping. The D-Ring, for example, became the Doha ExpressWay freeway in 2010, crossing the city on a north-south axis with 6 to 8 American-style lanes. Doha now stretches from Al Wukra in the south (now served by a metro line) to Al Khor in the north, and has swallowed up the large city of Al Rayyan, now an integral part of Doha's easternmost suburb. From 9 districts (neighborhoods) at the beginning of the 20th century, it now boasts 60! The city is constantly under construction, with the former central district of Msheireb, for example, razed to the ground to be completely rebuilt. Not to mention the new districts for foreign "workers" where new constructions are lining up in the city's most remote suburbs. Whatever the case may be, this immense construction site exudes an energy that never fails to amaze visitors!
Away from the capital, freeways lead to the four corners of the island: to the south, towards Messaieed, where you'll find sand dunes and a vast inland sea. To the south-west, a freeway leads to Salwa in Saudi Arabia, the main route to the neighbouring country. On the Qatari side, a major tourist complex has just been inaugurated here, featuring a vast Hilton hotel complex with real beaches and a water amusement park for families. To the west, a freeway serves Dukhan, and to the north, another leads to Al Ruwais, where a new resort has also been opened. It is close to the Unesco-listed fort of Al Zubarah. The unspoilt beaches of the peninsula's north-east coast are a great place to stop off at weekends.
