RECORDS 
OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OL INDIA. 
Part 3.] 1872. [August. 
Note on Maskat and Massandim on the east coast of Arabia, by W. T. Blanfoed, 
A. R. S. M., F. G. S., Deputy Superintendent, Geological Survey of India. 
The rocks of Maskat and of Els Massandim, (the latter being the hold projecting cape 
which forms the Arabian side of the straits of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf,) 
have already been described by Dr. Carter in his memoir on the geology of the south-east coast 
of Arabia; the former from personal inspection, the latter from specimens and a description 
furnished by Lieutenant Coustable. In a recent voyage up the Persian Gulf, I had an oppor¬ 
tunity of visiting both these localities, and the result of my brief examination of them, 
whilst entirely confirming Dr. Carter’s account, enables me to add a few particulars of 
interest. 
Maskat .—The cove of Maskat, as mentioned by Dr, Cartel - , is surrounded by dark 
coloured serpentine rocks rising steeply from the water. But here and there stratification or 
foliation is very apparent; thus, on the west side of the harbour, the rocks have a distinct dip 
to the north at an angle of about 45°. Riding inland from the suburb of Matrak to a distance 
of two or three miles, I found that the serpentine passes gradually into hornblende-schist,* 
and I can only suggest that the rocks of Maskat probably beloug to the metamorphic series, 
which is mentioned by Carter as occurring in the form of granite, gneiss, diorite, &c., at 
several places on the south-east coast of Arabia. 
Upon the schists and serpentine rest beds of pale-coloured limestone, with calcareous 
sandstones, conglomerate and variegated clays with gypsum, just as described by Carter. 
The conglomerate contains pebbles of limestone, sandstone, quartzite, and a green quartzose 
rock coloured by chlorite. Amongst the limestone pebbles, some of a very dark colour 
contain traces of fossils resembling encrinite stems; these arc perhaps derived from rocks 
of the same series as those of Massandim. , 
I could find no fossils in the limestones, &c., at the place where I examined them, but 
their appearance is so similar to that of some of the nummulitic rocks of Sind that I 
should have classed them as probably nummulitic, even without the conclusive evidence 
furnished by Captain Newbold.f At the same time it struck me that some greyish overlying 
beds which I had not time to visit, but which are well seen on the coast north-west of 
Maskat, might belong to the newer tertiaries of the Makran group. J The little island ot 
Pahil appears to be of nummulitic limestone. 
Massetndini '.—The whole of the promontory which, jutting out from the Arabian Coast, 
closes in the southern portion of the Persian Gulf appears to consist of stratified dark- 
* It is doubtless a less schistose form ol' this rook which Dr. Carter calls diorite. 
t Jour. Bombay Br. It. A. S., Vol. Ill, pt. 1, p. 27. 
t See previous paper, p. 43, for the meaning of this term. 
