A few members of the ASOM team (Sarah Ivory, Daniel Peart, Kyle Riordan, Aly Mehri) recently spent the month in Dhofar searching for more fossil hyrax middens in the eastern Nejd desert. It was an intense few weeks of climbing up and down mountains and other misc. adventures, but our group was great and we had a lot of fun.
Aly, Daniel, and Kyle during lunch in the desert.
We also had the opportunity to think about and study the modern environment around the sites where we are finding middens thanks to numerous visitors over the course of our stay. First, Mike McGlue (U. Kentucky) joined us in order to help us better understand the geological context of the caves where hyraxes live as well as the gradients in weathering observed across the desert.
Sarah and Mike hamming it up in the wadi.
Next, the Oman Botanic Garden (Andrew Anderson, Saif al Hatmi, Nasser al Rashidi, and Fathi al Hasani) spent a week with us, doing botanical surveys and collecting plant specimens. Finally, we were very lucky to spend a day with Aly Achmed al Kathiry from the Ministry of Heritage and Culture in an area in the west of Dhofar. His familiarity with the desert and hyrax habitats has always led us to wonderful discoveries. We collected almost 50 new middens which have already arrived back in the US for analysis!
Saif, Nasser, and Fathi collecting plants.