An attempt at a field trip itinerary this is definitely tentative!

The following itinerary is rough, but close. Note that the UW group will spend days 6-10 at a single location to allow students to work on class projects. UO will not be staying that long, however, we will be with UW at this location for a couple of days. This allows some students an opportunity to get involved with projects is they so desire.

Feb. 20        Leave Eugene
Feb. 21        Arrive late in Muscat
Feb. 22        A free day to rest and shop in Muscat (your only day to visit the suk).
Feb. 23        First day in field, return to Muscat that night, stay in hotel
Feb. 24        Day 2 in field (note: you can leave excess baggage at the hotel in Muscat)
Feb. 25        Day 3
Feb. 26        Day 4
Feb. 27        Day 5
Feb. 28        Day 6
Mar. 1         Day 7
Mar. 2         Day 8 (return to Muscat by early evening; shower; catch midnight flight)
Mar. 3         Arrive back in Portland.

Day 1. Wadi Al Abyad (stop #1 on the map)

Walk through and swap vehicles? (UW walks downhill!). Could possibly return to hotel in Muscat

In the south (1st day) look at the mantle (harzburgite -with pyroxenite banding in some places; a foliation can easily be seen, a dunite channel, some late dykes, eventually serpentinite veins and touch the Moho with a thin Moho transition zone) (eventually you can see a Wehrlite intrusion in the lower gabbros in the oasis where you touch the Moho)

In the north (2nd day) continuing the cross-section from the Moho again (with plastic deformation in the thin Moho transition zone) look at the lower gabbros (olivine-rich, horizontal, layered) and follow that to upper gabbros (steeply dipping, less layered, more foliated, still deformed at magmatic stage)

Two mappings can be done easily: map the Moho, map the transition from lower gabbros to upper gabbros. Some people can look at textures and count layers in the gabbros and compare that to other places where other people do the same kind of things.

Day 2-4 Spend time in South looking at Semail and Wadi Tayin areas. Presumably the itinery here would be largely determined after consultation with the French. Groups that wanted to might have the opportunity to spend a couple of days on specific projects.

Day 5 Travel north (could also be done on evening of Day 4), visit Geotimes outcrop, sulfide (?), a dike section

Day 6-10. Remain in a single location which is yet to be determined with access to a complete ophiolite section (e.g., Wadi Hilti (#10 on the map)).

2 other days should be spent in the north Wadi Hilti (#10 on the map) or Wadi Haymiliah (#9 on the map), or both if you have time? You could look at the rooting of the sheeted dyke in the gabbros, the transition from dykes to pillows.

2 other days in the Maqsad area (#2 on the map - possibility)

1st day you can visit Tuff (layered gabbro lenses at the entrance of the garden in the dunite, a chromite pod a bit further away) and walk in Wadi Qawasim (north north-east of Mahram) (melt impregnated dunite,sometimes with strong fabrics, some others with no fabric, gabbro lenses again of various sizes, and a nice gabbro outcrop with a big fold).

2nd day see the masssive impregnation in the harburgite (no fabric) and a bit further gabbros above the Moho, with strong magmatic deformation and a wehrlite intrusion. The area is good for people interested in studying melt distribution in the mantle (they can map dykes in the harzburgite, look at the aspect ratio of gabbro lenses in the thick Moho transition zone, some can work on the strong deformation in the lower crustal gabbros). If you have spare time, you can see upper gabbros and some sheeted dykes, further in the south (look geological maps for better indications).

Questions and Answers

The following Q/A is from an e-mail to Peter Kelemen.

Q: Some folks in our department have asked about shipping rocks back from Oman. Could you tell me how you have done this in the past?

A: Air freight. There is a central office at the airport, and they help you find the best deal. The cost has been in the range of $2-3/kg. You need to get a permit from Hilal al Azri before shipping the samples, giving the estimated weight of the shipment. We have shipped as much as 800 kg in one go. I don't think that Hilal will have any problem with giving you a permit.

On to other thoughts, such as the possibility of working on projects:

I am not too sure what you have in mind, but I am very enthusiastic about farming out individual gabbro outcrops to individual UW and UO students (one outcrop/student), to determine the length scales and magnitude of local compositional variation (plus any textural studies that may interest them), under the local supervision of McCallum/MacBirney. For that purpose, we already have very good samples from both the Bani Karous and Khafifah (near Ibra) sections. We would be happy to share these samples, or students could take their own, or both. We would be delighted to collaborate on these projects, and could for example share our setup for digital textural analyses and ion probe work with your students. The digital texture setup is now working really well, and we (mainly postdoc Carlos Garrido) are using it in an overview study of our Bani Karous and Khafifah sample sections right now. The long term value of our overview would be greatly enhanced by careful studies of local variability, and I am sure that if your students don't choose to do that, we eventually will. And, of course, your students might choose to work on gabbros without collaborating with any other research group. That's fine too. In any case, however, if UW and/or UO students choose to work on these problems, we would definitely like to be informed about what they choose to do.

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Last modified 16 January 1998