Move to protect fossil site

The Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey (ADIAS) has taken another initiative to protect a Late Miocene period fossil site in the Western Region.

The Takreer refinery of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is helping the initiative, sources said.

Takreer will provide logistical and other support for a survey on the proposed site of its new Hazardous Waste Treatment Plant in Ruwais on the Abu Dhabi-As Sila'a Highway.

"Takreer refinery company has extended its full support for the research into fossils millions of years old that have been found at the proposed Ruwais site," the survey announced.

The fossils were discovered in April during a preliminary ecological survey of the site.

Among those identified at that time were skull fragments, jawbones and teeth from an early species of crocodile, fragments of the teeth of ancestors of horses, pieces of fossilised eggshell from a giant ancestor of the ostrich, and, perhaps most important of all, what appears to be the skull of an ancient hippopotamus.

"Other fossils recovered include bones from a wide range of animals from large elephants down to turtle and fish bone fragments," a survey spokesman said.

According to a report submitted to Takreer, the fossils date back to the Late Miocene period, around five to six million years ago. At the time, much of what is now the Western Region of Abu Dhabi was a fertile land with large rivers running through it, similar to the savannahs of East Africa today.

Fossils of the same period have also been found elsewhere in the Western Region, at Jebel Dhana and on the island of Shuweihat, for example.

Previous studies by palaeontologists from London's Natural History Museum and from Yale University in the United States, have shown that the Western Region of Abu Dhabi has the best fossils of land and river animals of the Late Miocene period in the world.

With support from Takreer, the Archaeological Survey will undertake further detailed work on the site. This involves a detailed survey of the site, now under way, and planned excavation of some of the fossils early next year.

The finds and the scientific data will then be incorporated into the Abu Dhabi Environmental Data-base, currently being developed by the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency, in association with the Archaeolog-ical Survey and other agencies.

As part of the study the survey staff are working closely with Takreer in planning the development of the new Hazardous Waste Disposal Plant, to ensure that locations of fossils within the plant area are protected.

Numerous previously unre-corded sites with fossils in an area stretching from Rumaitha, around 40 km south-west of Abu Dhabi to Jebel Dhana, over 200 km west of the capital, have been identified.

One survey spokesman said: "This site near Ruwais seems to be a major new discovery. "It has the capacity to add very substantially to scientific understanding of the country's past. Fossils are present over an area of several square kilometres.

Information about the fossils can be obtained from the website www.adias-uae.com/fossils

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