MikeR Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 I will be spending two weeks in Kuwait on business. With a weekend free I would like to collect fossils if any fossiliferous deposits are exposed. An internet search revealed nothing. Does anyone know if fossils can be found in Kuwait? Thanks Mike "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Siphuncle Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 i've heard from a very reliable source that in various parts of the middle east you shouldnt pick up anything you didnt personally set down if you prefer to keep your limbs where they are currently attached. on that note i would personally only dig at something in situ in virgin bedrock. i hope you find a safe and productive venue over there. Grüße, Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas "To the motivated go the spoils." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nala Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 There's a lot of liquid fossil everywhere , beware!there should be still mines from the last war Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NatureGalTx Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 I am currently living in Kuwait. I got excited when I had read posts from someone in Qatar as his fossil finds in a very short amount of time are very impressive. However, Dan is right as is Nala. There are a lot of unexploded ordinances left over from Iraq invading Kuwait. It also seems that Iraq is rather fond of leaving IED's all over the place even close to the Kuwait border. It is so difficult for me as there are rocks everywhere here but maybe you should consider Qatar a safer place to collect fossils in the Middle East. Kuwait city is supposed to have a very impressive fossil museum though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted November 3, 2011 Author Share Posted November 3, 2011 (edited) Thanks everyone for the sage advice. I too have been reading about fossils in Qatar and there is internet info about fossils in other countries in the Arabian pennisula. It is not easy, however travelling from country to country as it is in Europe without a Visa to each specific country. I probably will stick to recent shells I can find on the Persian Gulf. Mike Edited November 3, 2011 by MikeR "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jocky Posted November 5, 2011 Share Posted November 5, 2011 I am currently living in Kuwait. I got excited when I had read posts from someone in Qatar as his fossil finds in a very short amount of time are very impressive. However, Dan is right as is Nala. There are a lot of unexploded ordinances left over from Iraq invading Kuwait. It also seems that Iraq is rather fond of leaving IED's all over the place even close to the Kuwait border. It is so difficult for me as there are rocks everywhere here but maybe you should consider Qatar a safer place to collect fossils in the Middle East. Kuwait city is supposed to have a very impressive fossil museum though! Thanks everyone for the sage advice. I too have been reading about fossils in Qatar and there is internet info about fossils in other countries in the Arabian pennisula. It is not easy, however travelling from country to country as it is in Europe without a Visa to each specific country. I probably will stick to recent shells I can find on the Persian Gulf. Mike Travelling to Qatar is simple for Europeans as you just pick up visa on arrival. If your passport is from other countries then you would need to check. I have just got back from 2 whole days in the desert with a few friends fossiling our little hearts out. Lots of finds especially an intact Gastropod that I will post a video of as soon as I scrape the dust off myself. All of our finds are on the surface, its just a matter of finding the Cretaceous layer in the gorges that exist in the predominant Eocene limestone. If anyone is seriously considering fossiling in Qatar drop me a line and I would be glad to help. This is a great time of year to go into the desert as the weather is really cooling down to a very comfortable 25 - 35 Celsius. I have to say the fossils are generally in the least accessible bits of desert, so there is a fair bit of travelling across sand. There are no maps of the desert so you are dependant on a good GPS / Spare GPS / spare batteries for GPS. Brush up on those exploring skills! CHEERS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tex Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 Before my trip to Kuwait, I asked the paleontologist at UT Arlington about any fossils there. His wife is a paleontologist from Russia, and had a lot of field work in Iraq, which has plenty of fossils, but he said there are none in Kuwait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 This is an old post, but to say there are no fossils in Kuwait seems a bit wrong. https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0560f/report.pdf As others have said, I would be more concerned about land mines etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMP Posted October 20, 2017 Share Posted October 20, 2017 On 2011/11/3 at 9:34 AM, MikeR said: I will be spending two weeks in Kuwait on business. With a weekend free I would like to collect fossils if any fossiliferous deposits are exposed. An internet search revealed nothing. Does anyone know if fossils can be found in Kuwait? Thanks Mike I wouldn't risk it if I were going out. As others have said, land mines and IEDs are a big threat, but Kuwait is a small country and in the empty desert it would be easy for someone lacking experience navigating the region to get near international borders. At the minimum, in such a circumstance, you would face harassment from border agents, but at the worst you're looking at imprisonment in a country like Iraq or Saudi Arabia for illegal entry, and I don't think I need to explain the obvious shortfalls between the Iraqi legal system and the US one. Also, archaeological looting is a very big problem in many of those countries (especially with the civil wars going on, which Iraq is experiencing currently) and there exists the possibility that you could be stopped/detained for questioning with your equipment confiscated because I highly doubt police officers would understand the difference between looking for trilobites, and looking for ancient artifacts to smuggle. I guess a good way to sum it up is as follows. I'm not trying to say that you absolutely will come into issues when collecting (on the contrary you may have no problems at all), I'm just saying you should decide in your mind if finding a few sea shells is worth the possibility of being locked up in an Iraqi prison for several days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDAWG Posted October 20, 2017 Share Posted October 20, 2017 1 hour ago, EMP said: I wouldn't risk it if I were going out. As others have said, land mines and IEDs are a big threat... ...I'm just saying you should decide in your mind if finding a few sea shells is worth the possibility of being locked up in an Iraqi prison for several days. As many of us have seen and collected with Mike since 2011, it's a safe bet he did not get himself blown up or imprisoned. It's kind of funny when these old threads get exhumed and people don't realize it and carry on with a 6-year-old conversation. Don 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tex Posted October 20, 2017 Share Posted October 20, 2017 Well, I’m getting ready to go over there, and looked to see if there was anything on here about fossils in the area. I also asked the professor at the college about it, so I just posted here as to what he said. I won’t be leaving the base, but had hoped I might luck out and find some on the base I’ll be at, but apparently not. I guess the people after me just didn’t realize this was an old thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMP Posted October 20, 2017 Share Posted October 20, 2017 1 hour ago, FossilDAWG said: As many of us have seen and collected with Mike since 2011, it's a safe bet he did not get himself blown up or imprisoned. It's kind of funny when these old threads get exhumed and people don't realize it and carry on with a 6-year-old conversation. Don 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted October 21, 2017 Author Share Posted October 21, 2017 Although I have not posted on the forum for awhile, I am still quite alive. I made several trips to Kuwait City but took the advice as given above. I spent most of my off time collecting recent shells along the Persian Gulf which yielded a diverse Indian Ocean fauna. My last trip in February 2012 I believe, the beaches were littered with cuttle bone which I thought was kind of cool. If you get a chance check out the fish market which preserves some of the old Arabian vibe in a very Americanized city. Mike "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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