E-mail Us

     The first time I found a fossilised sea urchin, I thought it was a camel dropping lying in the rubble. But then I noticed five petal shapes on the round surface, which I recognised from contemporary sea urchins. Even though my first fossil sea urchin was not a very good specimen, I was delighted to hold something that was alive 65 million years ago!

     At the time I had been in the Emirates for just a few months and I had no idea how rich in fossils this area is. Over time I picked up fossils to which I gave names such as Potato Chip, Shark Tooth, Spring Roll and Little Lid. Gradually I learned their proper names. The Potato Chip found on Jebel Hafeet was a ‘nummulite’, a one-celled organism akin to the present-day amoebae. Shark Teeth were in fact a kind of coral, belonging to the Rudists and officially called ‘biradiolata’. Spring Rolls, found on Jebel Buhays, had the lovely but difficult name of ‘actaeonellid’ and the Little Lids were solitary corals called ‘cyclolites’.

     My collection of whelks and turrets (gastropods), cockles and scallops (bivalves) grew, but sea urchins were rare. I did not even know ammonites existed here, until I heard someone mention that he had found a straight ammonite. Even though I was a complete ignoramus about fossils, I did know that ammonites are important in geology and paleontology, because they help to date the area in which they are found. Ammonites are related to the present day Nautilus shell, a curled snail. A straight ammonite is partially or totally uncurled.

     One day a friend took me to a new site where she said she had found several sea urchins. As we were searching the rubble between the boulders, we picked up few really nice specimens, as well as various gastropods and other fossils. Then an interesting shape, still half hidden in a rock, caught my attention.  I called to my friend: “Come look at this enormous snail. Don’t you think it looks like an ammonite?”

     Surely it couldn’t be one! It was the size of large dinner plate, and if it was indeed an ammonite, it would be an extraordinary find. We took pictures and consulted our local fossil expert, Mrs Valerie Chalmers. And yes, it appeared to be an ammonite.

     When we heard that a natural history expert from the British Museum was coming to the UAE, we contacted him and proposed to visit the site. He was a sea-urchin specialist, but he was easily persuaded to come look at something outside his field. So on a day late in April we set out to show him the area.

     Dr Andrew Smith looked not at all as I had expected. To my mind a fossil expert from a venerable institution like the British Museum should be middle-aged with wispy gray hair and half moon spectacles. Andrew, with beard, hat and backpack, charging up slopes like a mountain goat, did not conform to that image, but when he started to explain fossils to us, his expertise was immediately apparent.

     In order to become an expert in matters concerning marine fossils, Andrew studied both geology and marine zoology. Of all the many creatures that live in the sea, he chose to concentrate on sea urchins, officially called echinoderms. He told us that there are 1700 species of echinoderms known to man, of which a few hundred have died out and are now known only as fossils.

     Echinoderms include starfish and brittle stars, and they almost always have a five-sided symmetry. In sea urchins, the internal skeleton, composed of calcite plates, is shaped like a rounded or disc-shaped shell. The living animals have tubular extensions with which they feed, move and breathe. The number, size and shape of these tubes can be recognised in the fossilised echinoderm as sequences of pores in specific configurations. These pores, and the shape of the plates of the shell, help to identify the different species. In the UAE more than 30 different species of fossilised sea urchins have been found to date, some new to science till just a few years ago. One is named after the collector - the friend who had shown me the site where the ammonite was found.

     As we walked around the site, Andrew pointed out the greenish-black lava (ophiolites) that used to be at the bottom of the Sea of Tethys. During the so-called Cretaceous Period, between 115 to 70 millions years ago, the creatures that lived on the bottom of the sea die there, were covered with sand and debris and turned into stone due to the enormous pressures that were exerted. Then, volcanic activity in the middle of the Sea of Tethys caused the ocean floor to break up, spread and rise. Some of the volcanic rocks were pushed up on top of the Arabian landmass. These became our present day Hajar Mountains. The beaches that adjoined the ocean were folded and pushed up also, carrying the marine fossils along till they came to rest along the western side of the Hajar. Translated to present day geology, the Limestone Mountains that rise from the alluvial plains at the western edge of the Hajar Mountains are the places where you can find marine fossils.

     Andrew showed how each layer of the marine deposits was characterised by the animals that used to live in it. As we climbed the mountains he pointed out where the sea became more and more shallow, until finally we reached rocks that showed marks of rainwater forming gullies, indicating that now we were above sea-level.

     It would probably have been easier to recognize and understand if all the layers were still in the sequence in which they had been deposited. But the enormous powers that pushed up the ocean floor and crumpled the beaches had turned things sideways and upside down, so that it was difficult to visualise how things used to fit together. However, it was no problem to Andrew, who came back after a foray to the top of the hill and said: “OK, now I know where everything is, so I’ll be able to tell where any fossil we find belongs.”

     As we trudged along Andrew explained that there are several different types of sea urchins. There are raspers that eat algae from the rocks. There are sifters that sift the debris in search of edible particles, and there are selective sifters that look for specific food among the debris they sift.

     As we walked under an overhang where recent rains had washed superficial layers away, exposing fossils below, Andrew pointed to a large fossil high up, out of reach. It was a hand-sized sea urchin with a rather thin skeleton that was already being eroded. A bit lower down, he found one belonging to a smaller species, which he knocked out of the rock with one deft blow of his geological hammer.

     As he turned it around in his hand to look at the lower side of the sea urchin, he exclaimed: “Look, here are the tube feet, still attached.” That meant that the animal was alive and feeding on the ocean floor when it was buried in the mud of some prehistoric upheaval. The tube feet were visible as white crystal-like stripes, scattered along the edges of the urchin.

     Andrew moved slowly along the wall, in the shadow of the overhang. Suddenly he exclaimed:  “Now this is what I call a sweetie”. Carefully he removed a small sea urchin from its place in the rock. He pointed out the pores and said that, with a magnifying glass, we would be able to see lines like the grooves on our fingertips on the plates between the petals. I offered him the magnifying glass that I always carry for plant identifications. As he studied the little fossil, he became even more excited. What should have been lines appeared to be dots – and this made it a special find. “A new genus and a new species”, he said. I asked him how he could be so sure so quickly. The answer was simple – provided you had a lot of knowledge and experience: “I know what family it belongs to and there are only two species in that family. Since it is neither of those two, it has to be a new species”.

     In fact, later on during his visit, several more new urchins were found, increasing the number of species known from the Emirates considerably.

     By now it was getting quite hot and we still wanted to show Andrew “my” ammonite. We climbed down to the rock that contained it and as he caught sight is the fossil, Andrew chuckled happily. “That is a nice ammonite”.

     The ammonite would help date the area and Andrew suggested that I “donate it to the Queen” - meaning it would go to the British Museum where it would stay with the collections form this area. (This collection later formed a special exhibit in the Biritsh Museum.)

     But first it had to be removed from its rocky embrace. It would be impossible to get it out in one piece, as we could already see that it had cracked in various places. Andrew knocked a piece of rock off, exposing the inner coil of the fossil.  ”You have to create an island”, he said as he started the process quite a distance away from the fossil. It was hard and hot work and there was not much we could do to help. 

     As we stood watching, Mrs Chalmers told me that the Ras al Khaymah museum has a picture of one large ammonite like this, which was found on a remote site in the mountains. I was chuffed at finding such a nice specimen – and my very fist ammonite as well. Beginner’s luck!

     Little by little the fossil came out. Andrew marked each new breaking surface with letters, saying that he was going to enjoy putting the puzzle back together in London.

     Just before leaving my friend noticed a small sea urchin lying only a few feet away from the ammonite rock. It was a perfect specimen of a spectacular sea-urchin fossil called Goniopygis superbus. For her it was a good compensation for not having found the ammonite. I needed nothing to take home – I was more than pleased at just the idea of having found one of the two largest ammonites in the Emirates. It was later identified in the British Museum (Natural History) by Dr. Mike Howarth as Pachydiscus cf.  jacquoti (Seunes). It pieced together moderately well, though the middle is not preserved, i.e. it was not present in the original specimen. One of these days I want to go and visit it in London…

Fossils can be enjoyed and studied at several natural history exhibits in the country:

- At the Natural History Museum, Desert Park, Sharjah

- At the natural history exhibit in the Abu Dhabi Centre for Documentation