Follow the key events that shaped Oman — each with its age, its evidence and where to see it on our tours.
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Travel through Oman’s deep time
Drag, use the arrow keys or pick an event. The time axis is logarithmic so that recent events stay visible — it is not to scale. Period names and boundaries: ICS chart.
Wissenschaftliche Illustration Simplified geological model, not to scale. Tap to enlarge.
Cryogenian · about 720–635 Ma
Ice ages leave their mark
Glaciers left glacial deposits that are preserved in Oman, including in the Jabal Akhdar area, where two glacial episodes are recorded around 740–700 and 650–630 million years ago. They are part of the evidence for the global “Snowball Earth” ice ages.
Evidence of ancient glaciation is part of our Jabal Akhdar geology and cultural hike.
Wissenschaftliche Illustration Simplified geological model, not to scale. Tap to enlarge.
Permian to Cretaceous
Tropical seas build a limestone platform
For a long span from the Permian to the Cretaceous, the edge of Arabia lay under shallow seas where thick limestones accumulated. Known as the Hajar Supergroup, these fossil-bearing limestones now form much of Jabal Akhdar.
See the layered super-sequences and fossils on our Jabal Akhdar route.
Magma rising at an oceanic spreading centre created the crust and mantle section now called the Samail (Semail) ophiolite. Zircon crystals in its gabbros have been dated to about 96–95 million years ago.
Our Muttrah GeoTrek stop explains the ophiolite sequence.
Soon after it formed, the slab of ocean floor was thrust (obducted) onto the edge of the Arabian continent. Rocks at its base — the metamorphic sole — formed at about the same time as its crust.
Wissenschaftliche Illustration Simplified geological model, not to scale. Tap to enlarge.
Late Cretaceous · about 80 Ma
The continental edge goes deep
Part of the Arabian continental margin was carried to great depth and transformed into high-pressure rocks, such as the eclogites near As Sifah, before returning to the surface — strongly folded on the way.
See the Sifah eclogite and the Wadi Al Mayh sheath fold on our Muscat route.
Wissenschaftliche Illustration Simplified geological model, not to scale. Tap to enlarge.
Paleogene · 66–23 Ma
Seas return: younger limestones
After the ophiolite was emplaced, shallow seas again covered parts of northern Oman and deposited younger, fossil-rich limestones, seen today around Muscat.
See fossils in Tertiary limestone on our Muscat route.
Wissenschaftliche Illustration Simplified geological model, not to scale. Tap to enlarge.
Cenozoic to today
Mountains rise, wadis cut down
Later uplift and folding shaped the Oman Mountains, including the great dome of Jabal Akhdar, while erosion carved deep wadis and canyons. Field guides of the Geological Society of Oman relate this mountain building to the collision of Arabia with Eurasia from about the Oligocene–Miocene onwards; the exact timing is still studied by geologists.
Grand Canyon View on our Muscat route looks across the super-sequences of Oman.
Wissenschaftliche Illustration Simplified geological model, not to scale. Tap to enlarge.
Today
Rocks still changing today
Where groundwater reacts with mantle peridotite, new carbonate minerals and travertine are still forming — a natural process studied for capturing carbon dioxide.
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