The Bay of Zekreet () is a half-moon shaped

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

on the

Zekreet Peninsula The Zekreet Peninsula, also known as the Abrouq Peninsula, is located to the north of the industrial city of Dukhan in western Qatar. Much of the area is associated with erosional landforms such as foothills, mesas and gypsum plateaux. The village ...

in western

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

. The Zekreet Peninsula is a rocky, sandy desert, with numerous rock formations and gypsum plateaux. The bay is situated to the north of the industrial city of

Dukhan Dukhan () is a city in the western municipality of Al-Shahaniya, Qatar. It is approximately west of the capital, Doha. Dukhan is administered by Qatar's state oil agency QatarEnergy and is the site of the first oil discovery in Qatar. It was pr ...

and to the southwest of the village of

Zekreet Zekreet () is a village in north-western Qatar near Dukhan and about north-west west of Doha. Originally a sparsely populated area, Zekreet was built up in the 1940s after oil operations commenced in Qatar. This included the construction of a h ...

. It is located to the north of the Dukhan Sabkha, and is separated by a straight depression known as Rawdat Jarrah. Geologists have theorized that this depression was an extension of the Bay of Zekreet prior to the drop in sea levels c. 3,000 years ago.

Geology

The area spanning from

to the upper part of the Bay of Zekreet is the only surface of Qatar where an entire section of the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

Dammam Formation is exposed.

History

A settlement dating to the early 19th century was discovered at the southern end of the bay, and was possibly presided over by the pirate ruler of Qatar, Rahmah ibn Jabir al-Jalahimah. Another archaeological site, Uwaynat Ali, is found on the other side of the bay. The western side of the bay hosted the shallow-water harbor used to unload supplies for Qatar's oil industry. The growth of the modern village of

, which is across the bay, was dependent on this harbor. Shortly after the

Mesaieed Mesaieed (, also transliterated as ''Umm Sa'id'') is an industrial city in Al Wakrah Municipality south of the Qatari capital Doha. It was one of the most important cities in Qatar during the 20th century, having gained recognition as a prime ...

Harbor opened in 1952 it was made obsolete.

References

External links

Geographic.org
Bays of Qatar Al-Shahaniya {{Qatar-geo-stub