Landscapes from Sea to Summit


The spectacular landscape of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi represents an ancient and unique inheritance. From the highest mountain ridge to submerged coastal reefs, the diverse and often striking features show evidence of powerful forces that have progressively shaped and sculpted the landscape seen today. Some of these formative forces were truly phenomenal in magnitude and time scale involving the movement and collision of continental plates. In addition, the fluctuating state of the Arabian Gulf has at various times over the few million years of its existence, sustained a vast wind blown desert and a meandering river basin as well as the present extraordinary sea. Combined, these formative forces brought dramatic changes and also left a profoundly significant inheritance below the surface. Rock formations and geological structures have allowed the accumulation of essential resources. These include both water within vast subterranean aquifers, and the bountiful oil and gas reserves, which continue to transform the Emirate beyond recognition.

The key to understanding the present landscape and its features rests within events in the distant geological past. However, there are also contemporary forces at work today,

which are equally influential. In particular, dynamic climatic patterns that influence aridity, wind, rainfall and temperature fluctuations continually erode the surface rocks to produce a diversity of landforms shrouded with varying sediments and soils. For example, the dramatic dune fields that typify the deserts of the Emirate have their origins in the distant past. But they too are mobile and ever changing, with characteristic dimensions dictated by the subtle, wind blown movements of individual sand grains.

The epic and evolving story of the Emirate's geographic inheritance is marked by the dramatic interface between land and sea from the macro to the micro scale, from the distant past to present and future, and from sea to summit. This provides the background and context for understanding an intricate environment that continues to impact and is impacted by human development. While the clues to understanding the past rest within the characteristics of today's landscape, there are valuable insights to be gained from the restless Earth regarding the challenges of a rapidly changing environment.

Earliest Origin

To appreciate the geographic inheritance of Abu Dhabi, it is important to have a chronological as well as a spatial perspective on the evolution of the environment ...

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Restless Earth

From its earliest beginnings, the physical geography of Abu Dhabi displays the consequences of plate tectonics as a fundamental formative process. Although the ...

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Restless Environment

On the coastline of Abu Dhabi during summer with blistering humidity and temperatures soaring into the upper forty degrees Celsius; the Gulf's warm waters gently ...

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Unique Landscapes

The landscapes of Abu Dhabi today result from a complex sequence of interactions of numerous natural forces and formative processes – some subtle and slow, others ...

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Unique Landscapes

Abu Dhabi's landscape is most closely associated with seemingly endless sand deserts and dune fields and sabkha formations. Less prominent are the extensive and ...

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Climate Over Time

Abu Dhabi's climate behaviour is largely the result of variations in surface pressure and the movement of air, both vertically and horizontally. In general, annual ...

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