January 9, 2012
Monday Geology Picture: Pillow Basalts in the Oman Ophiolite
Posted by Evelyn Mervine
I’m currently in Oman for a geology conference, so today’s geology picture is one I recently took here in the Samail Ophiolite. The picture shows some weathered and fractured pillow basalts with a pencil for scale. These are not the best-looking pillow basalts in the ophiolite. The freshest ones are found in the Geotimes sequence up in the northern part of the ophiolite whereas these weathered ones are the best ones you can observe close to Muscat, the capital city of Oman. I apologize that this picture is a bit dark. Unfortunately, we arrived at the pillow basalt outcrop just as darkness was falling. So, I took this picture using my camera flash. Still… spectacular, isn’t it? Seafloor pillow basalts on land, in the middle of the desert!
Nice pencil! 🙂
very nice!
pillow basalt !! i wondered how old of it x
These particular pillow basalts are about 95 million years old. That’s why they’re a bit weathered looking.
Lovely basalt pillows. Did you get any photos of sheeted dikes? I’d love to see some that show the chill margins.
Yes, I have some photos of sheeted dikes. I’ll try to post some soon!
[…] week I posted a picture of pillow basalts in the Samail Ophiolite, Oman. I recently visited Oman for a geology conference, and I was […]
[…] the past couple of weeks, I posted pictures of pillow basalts and sheeted dikes in the Samail Ophiolite, Oman. To round out the crustal ophiolite sequence, I […]
Hello Evelyn,
It was a long time ago but I am interested in this Omani pillow lava. I live in Oman, and the only one I know is the famous Wadi Jizzi “Geotimes”. Do you remember where you found this one ? Do you know of any other closer to Muscat than Wadi Jizzi ?
Thank you !