Dukhan Sabkha, located in the northern section of the

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 ...

region 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 ...

, is the largest inland

sabkha A sabkha () is a predominately coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of a semiarid to arid climate. Sabkhas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coast ...

(a type of saltflat) ecosystem found in the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

. The sabkha runs for approximately , occupies an area of , has a width of to and a depth of between and below sea level. Consequently, the lowest point of Qatar is in the sabkha. It is situated roughly east of the city of

and from Dukhan Highway. The

Dukhan Field Dukhan Field is a large petroleum-producing field extending over an area of approximately 80 km in Dukhan, Qatar. The first well was drilled in 1939/1940 and the first export of petroleum from Dukhan went out in 1949. The field produces up to ...

is to its immediate west.

Description

Rawdat Jarrah separating Dukhan Sabkha from Bay of Zekreet

The sabkha is fed by seawater from the

Bay of Zekreet The Bay of Zekreet () is a half-moon shaped bay on the Zekreet Peninsula in western Qatar. 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 ...

, north by approximately . Geologists have theorized that Rawdat Jarrah, the depression separating Dukhan Sabkha from the Bay of Zekreet, was an extension of the bay prior to the drop in sea levels years ago. Various species of algae are found on the sabkha's surface. As a result of high uranium content, the sabkha has very high levels of radioactivity, ranging from a mean of 16 to 75 cps.

Salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

levels are high in the sabkha. Among the reasons for this include the intrusion of seawater, a prevailing desert climate and salt deposition from sediment runoff. The soil lacks nutrients of any substantial quantities except for

sodium chloride Sodium chloride , commonly known as Salt#Edible salt, edible salt, is an ionic compound with the chemical formula NaCl, representing a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions. It is transparent or translucent, brittle, hygroscopic, and occurs a ...

and

calcium Calcium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to it ...

. Qatar's government has designated plots of land within the sabkha for biosaline agricultural experimentation to determine which salt-tolerant plant species grow best in sabkha habitats.

Geology

Its main constituents are aggregation sediments,

evaporite An evaporite () is a water- soluble sedimentary mineral deposit that results from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution. There are two types of evaporite deposits: marine, which can also be described as oce ...

s, and an assemblage of wind-blown sediments. Sediments within the sabkha differ from other sabkhas in the region. Here, they are described as mainly comprising brownish-grey wind-blown sand underneath

halite Halite ( ), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pi ...

crystals up to thick.

Gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

crystals are also found overlaying the sabkha, particularly in its centre. The chemical breakdown of these deposits is shown to be 33%

anhydrite Anhydrite, or anhydrous calcium sulfate, is a mineral with the chemical formula CaSO4. It is in the orthorhombic crystal system, with three directions of perfect cleavage parallel to the three planes of symmetry. It is not isomorphous with the ...

, 19% halite, 10% gypsum, 14% dolomite and 18%

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

References

{{reflist Sabkhas of Qatar Al-Shahaniya