MUSCAT: Mahmoud bin Suleiman Al Abri, from the Wilayat of Seeb, is a hunter of precious stones and fossils, some of which have led him to uncover meteorites.

Al Abri earned the moniker of ‘meteorite hunter’ after he shared his passion with experts at the Sultan Qaboos University. “After I found a meteorite, I surveyed the area and found a good number of remains, which led me to go to Sultan Qaboos University and study this matter with university professors specialized in this field. They began calling me the meteorite hunter, because of my frequent wanderings in various parts of the Sultanate. It has led me to discover more treasures in various places; some mountains in the Sultanate contain fossils and precious stones too,” he told a local news agency.

According to him, the mountains of Muscat Governorate abound with quartz and citrine stones, and some uninhabited plains, away from residential communities, have meteorites too. “The Al-Misfah and Al-Jafin mountains contain a huge collection of fossils such as snails, seashells, turtles, petrified plants, and shiny quartz stones of transparent and pink color,” he stated, adding that he found a geological park of coral fossils in Al Batinah.