Buhais Geology Park

The hills at Jebel Buhais were the floor of a sea about sixty-five million years ago, and the rock is packed with the shells and urchins that lived in it, pushed up when the Arabian and Eurasian plates collided. The visitor centre, opened in 2020, is a cluster of five interlocking pods designed by Hopkins Architects, set into the landscape and holding exhibits on the geology, the fossils and the plate movement that raised them. Trails run out into the hills.

Background

Jebel Buhais is a long limestone outcrop near Madam in the central region of Sharjah, about 48 kilometres southeast of the city of Sharjah, rising to some 340 metres and running almost without a break north to Mleiha. Its slopes hold a large necropolis with burials from the Neolithic, Bronze, Iron and Hellenistic ages, the earliest from the 5th millennium BCE, and no inland burial site in the UAE has an older radiometric date. An Iron Age fort at the core of the necropolis was first found in 1973, and the area is protected as a nature reserve.

Source: Wikipedia, "Jebel Buhais"

The landscape

• The five pods - an interlocking visitor centre set into the fossil hills.
• The sea-floor fossils - shells and urchins in rock laid down sixty-five million years ago.
• The plate collision story - the exhibits on how the sea floor became mountain.
• The trails - marked routes out into the surrounding hills.

When to go

October to April; the site is exposed and summer is dangerous. Early morning is coolest for the trails. Weekends are busiest and the centre closes one day a week.

Before you go

The trails are exposed with no shade and water must be carried. The centre is small and the visit is short unless the walks are done. Fossil collecting is prohibited and enforced.

Nearby

Mleiha and Fossil Rock are northeast.

Key facts