ACADEMIA Letters

Impact crater of Oman

sobhi nasir, Sultan Qaboos University

The recent discovery of meteorites in the deserts of Oman has lent international recognition to
the Sultanate as a promising destination for scientific research. Several meteorite expeditions
concluded that Oman could be one of the largest and most spectacular meteorite collection
areas in the world. The Sultanate contributed around 14 % of all the world’s meteorite finds
excluding Antarctica. The desert of Oman had yielded more than 5,000 meteorites as of mid-
2011. Included among these are a large number of Lunar and Martian meteorites (Hofmann
et al. 2006, 2014). However, no surface impact craters were yet recorded from Oman. The
nearest impact is the Wabar impact crater in Saudi Arabian that is dated 290 years old (Prescott
et al. 2004). Wabar consists of three small craters approximately 11 m, 64 m and 116 m in
diameter formed by iron meteorite impactor
This work report for the first-time evidence for impact cratering in the Sultanate of Oman,
based on geological, morphological, petrological and geochemical investigations on 140 sam-
ples from the crater center and from the crater rdige. The newly found crater is a simple impact
crater located near the city of Mahoot in the central desert of Oman. The impact crater consists
of an elliptical ridge about 770 in length and 550 m in width and aligned roughly NNE to SSW
(Fig 1a). The elliptical shape and asymmetry in relief indicate an oblique impact. The impact
crater has been preserved in a nearly pristine state due to the dry climate of the Oman desert,
and the lithology of the target rocks. The crater preserves its original morphology, breccia
lens, various types of shock-materials and impact melt rocks, with no evidence of erosion or
burial of the crater. The siliciclastic ejecta (tektite, jasper and chert) cover about 5 km of the
the area surrounding the crater ridges. The crater can be considered as a model for terrestrial
hypervelocity impact craters. The exact age of the crater is unknown. However, the perfect
preservation of the crater shape and ejecta pattern indicates that the crater formed through
an impact from a northeastern direction during Cenozoic, and after uplifting and peneplana-

Academia Letters, June 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: sobhi nasir, sbhnasr3@gmail.com

Citation: Nasir, S. (2021). Impact crater of Oman. Academia Letters, Article 716.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL716.

1
tion of the central Oman area. Several melted iron meteorite specimens mixed with ejected
materials have been identified in the area of the crater. However, no original fresh meteorite
specimens were found in the crater or in the surrounding area. This indicates that the incoming
impactor of a size between 40-50 m in diameter, experienced no fragmentation and separa-
tion during atmospheric flight. in addition, it may melt, and chemically and physically interact
with both shocked and melted target rocks. Formations penetrated by this impact include the
local Late Proterozoic Masirah Bay sandstone Formation, and the underlaying dolomitic and
acidic volcanic and volcaniclastic of the Halfayn Formation which is underlain by the Pre-
Cambrian basement rock (mainly the acidic volcanics and granodiorite). The central peaks
contain breccia that is pushed upward from the deepest levels excavated by the crater, and
includes representatives from all the formations intersected by the crater and contain mate-
rials of melted or highly shocked rock. The rim of the basin, which rises to a maximum of
15 to 20 meters above the floor is composed of shocked jasper and siliceous breccia, chert,
normal sandstones, and silty shales of the Upper Precambrian Masirah Bay Formation. To the
west of the structure there is a north-south trending fault with a downthrow to the east. The
geometry of the structure suggests that it is an impact crater formed by hypervelocity impact,
which domed the enclosing sediments to form the structure mapped in Figure 1b. Preliminary
gravity and geomagnetic data reveal a buried large individual impactor body. The geometry
of the crater and the base of the impactite shown in the cross-section are speculative. The
center splay off a dyke with a NNE-SSW trend parallel to the long axis of the structure. The
center of the crater is occupied by low outcrops of suevite, polymictic impact breccia and rock
melt (Fig.2a).
Lithic breccia consists of a matrix and clasts (Figure 3a-l). The clasts account for about
60-70% of the breccia and are composed of a variety of different minerals, including carbon-
ate, quartz, feldspar, apatite and glass class. The matrix, accounting for about 30-40% of the
breccia, is mainly composed microcrystalline quartz (chalcedony), coesite, celadonite, barite,
calcite, feldspar and vesicular glass. carbonate spherules, liquid immiscible and quench tex-
tures as well as euhedral calcite crystals within impact glass clasts are very common within
the impact breccia. Quartz grains show 1-4 sets of PDFs.
Interesting of the Oman crater is that the outcrops of impact melt-bearing lithologies are
well preserving their entire original context. This is in agreement with (Osiniski et al. 2008)
that that impact melting is more common in sedimentary targets than has, hitherto, been be-
lieved. The suevite consists of clasts, a matrix, and glass clasts. Mixed melt glass and clasts are
observed in the suevite and occur as irregular patches with sizes of up to 1 mm × 10 mm. Most
of these shows obvious flow texture. The glass occurs as ovoid, droplet, ribbon, or irregular
fragments of different size. In ppl, the glass shows brown and yellow colors. In hand samples,

Academia Letters, June 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: sobhi nasir, sbhnasr3@gmail.com

Citation: Nasir, S. (2021). Impact crater of Oman. Academia Letters, Article 716.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL716.

2
the glass shows black or dark brown colors. Highly deformed carbonate and feldspar grains
are the main components of suevite and impact breccias. Carbonate, feldspar and quartz im-
pact melts occur as groundmass-forming grains within impact melt-bearing ejecta deposits.
They occur as globules, spherules, single crystals and irregularly-shaped grains within impact
glass clasts within the ejecta deposits. The melt origin for carbonates and feldspars includes
carbonate spherules, euhedral carbonate and feldspar grains within impact glass, calcite in-
tergrown with feldspar and liquid immiscible textures (Fig. 4a-l)(e.g. Osinski et al, 2008).
All clasts show, irregular fractures, planar deformation features and diaplectic glass melt,
indicating different shock stage which ranges from moderately shocked to whole rock melt-
ing, indicate a shock stage of F‐S6, and the SP and PST are 45–60 GPa and 900–1500 °C,
respectively. Abundant felsic rock melting occurs as mixed melt glass-clast and belongs to
the F‐S7 stage, and SP and PST are >60 GPa and >1500 °C, respectively (Stöffler et al., 2018).
Hofmann, A., Gnos, E, Al-Kathiri, A and Jull, T. (2006) Meteorite accumulation surfaces
in Oman: Main results of Omani-Swiss meteorite search campaigns, 2001-2006. 4th Swiss
Geoscience Meeting, Bern 2006
Hofmann, A., Gnos, E,Greber, N. Federspiel, N., T. Burri, T., Zurfluh, T., Al-Battashi
, M., Al-Rajhi, A., 2014. THE OMANI-SWISS METEORITE SEARCH PROJECT: UP-
DATE AND THE QUEST FOR MISSING IRONS. 77th Annual Meteoritical Society Meet-
ing, 5229.pdf
Osinski, G, Grieve, R,., . S. Collins, S., Marion, C., and Sylveter, P. 2008 The effect of
target lithology on the products of impact melting The effect of target lithology on the products
of impact melting Meteoritics & Planetary Science 43, Nr 12, 1939–1954
Prescott J. R., Robertson G. B., Shoemaker C., Shoemaker E. M., and Wynn J. 2004.
Luminescence dating of the Wabar meteorite craters, Saudi Arabia. Journal of Geophysical
Research 109:1–8.
Stöffler, D.; Hamann, C.; Metzler, K. Shock metamorphism of planetary silicate rocks and
sediments: Proposal for an updated classification system. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 2018, 53,
5–49.

Academia Letters, June 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: sobhi nasir, sbhnasr3@gmail.com

Citation: Nasir, S. (2021). Impact crater of Oman. Academia Letters, Article 716.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL716.

3
 Fig 1a-b. Google earth image showing the impact crater (a) and geological map and crosse
section in the crater (b)

Fig.2a-b. Field photo showing rim and breccia in the center (a) samples of suevite (b) and
shatter cone in carbonate (c).

Fig.3a-d. Impact melt breccia (a-b) and suevite samples (c-d)

Academia Letters, June 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: sobhi nasir, sbhnasr3@gmail.com

Citation: Nasir, S. (2021). Impact crater of Oman. Academia Letters, Article 716.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL716.

4
 Fig. 4a-f. a.Microcline clast and sanidine laths embedded in vesicular glass. b. Mixed
vesicular glass showing a flow texture. c-d. Quartz grains display many irregular fractures
and undulatory extinction. e. Calcite grains with two sets of planar deformation features. f.
Calcite melt spherules.

Academia Letters, June 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: sobhi nasir, sbhnasr3@gmail.com

Citation: Nasir, S. (2021). Impact crater of Oman. Academia Letters, Article 716.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL716.

5
 Fig. 4g-l. g-h. Glass melt spherules in deformed microcline and in deformed calcite. k.
Deformed plagioclase. l. Calcite inclusions mixed within microcline. Cc: calcite, Mc:
microcline, Pl: plagioclase, Qz:quartz.

Academia Letters, June 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: sobhi nasir, sbhnasr3@gmail.com

Citation: Nasir, S. (2021). Impact crater of Oman. Academia Letters, Article 716.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL716.