Karst cave.
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Karst cave.
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| Last update: | $Date: 2008/08/17 21:05:04 $ |
| 1983 | discovered by the geologist Don Davidson. | |
| 2002 | explored by Louise Hose, an American caver. | |
| APR-2003 | published in the National Geographic Magazine. | |
| 2008 | Ministry of Tourism issues the plan to develop the cave as a show cave. |
Majlis Al-Jin, the meeting place of the Jinns, is a single huge chamber which is listed on the top ten list of the biggest cave chambers on Earth. It is rather funny, that all websites we visited [Spring 2008] mention it to be second largest cave, although the reference site of Bob Gulden lists it as 8th largest. It seems this superlative was issued by the Oman Ministry of Tourism, it is published on their website.
Having seen the pictures published in the April 2003 issue of the National Geographic Society Magazine, we are impressed by the beauty of the sun lit cavern. Obviously this is at least partly a result of open shutter exposures. The two narrow natural entrances in the ceiling allow two beams of sunlight to enter the cave, especially around noon. The rest of the cavern is filled with ambient light during daylight hours.
The cave has two natural entrances, roof collapses which look from outside like two small and unimposing pits. The holes are only two or three metres across, and stay like this for the first ten metres. Then the cave chamber opens like a bell. The hole which is normally used to enter the cave is a drop of 178 meters - as measured by the discoverer Don Davidson - or 158 meters, according to the Government of Oman Ministry of Tourism website. This huge cavern is between 120 and 150 metres high and the floor about 300 by 200 metres big, which equals a floor area of 58,000 m². Below the entrance holes goat and other bird bones were found, obviously from animals which have fallen in. The cave consists only of this single chamber, there are no side passages, no branches, except probably passages covered by cave sediments and thus unknown and inaccessible. It is part of a cave system on the Selma Plateau, draining the area to the resurgence at Kaff Ta'iari near the top of Wadi Fins.
The entrances were discovered in 1983 by Don Davidson, a geologist studying water resources in the Sultanate. Davidson presumably died some ten years later when he left Oman permanently and went hiking in the Andes. He rented a car, drove it to a trailhead, left a note on it saying where he was going, and was never seen again. A pretty spooky story, which is actually not really connected with this cave.
In 2002 the cave was explored by Louise Hose, an American caver, famous from the IMAX movie Amazing Caves which she starred together with Nancy Aulenbach. This exploration tour was featured by the National Geographic Magazine in the April 2003 issue. This is the first time the cave became known to a wider public.
There is now a bolt hole at the entrance, which is commonly used by the cavers. The trip requires 200m of rope and some physical fitness, as the climb up on rope normally takes 45 minutes to an hour. As typical for mor important cave, there is a logbook where many cavers have recorded their successful tours into the cave. Although popular among cavers, there are not many cavers, so the number of cavers visitig the cave is actually rather low. Until now the cave was not closed, access was neither restricted nor prohibited.
There have been no known fatalities nor serious injuries so far, possibly because until recently there was no road there and cavers had to be serious enough about their sport to hike their equipment in or rent donkeys from a village 1.5 hour's walk from the cave entrance. Now there is a rough single lane road going up from near Tiwi on the coast to the Selma Plateau and the vicinity of the cave. And lately base jumping into the cave became popular, for example as part of corporate promotions. This increases the number of visitors dramatically, as there are far more extreme sport athletes than cavers.
In 2008 the Ministry of Tourism issued the plan to develop the cave as a show cave. They lately developed another cave in Oman as the first show cave of the country and the high number of 75,000 visitors in the first year lead to the plan for a second show cave and other geologic tourist sites. However, the press releases gave no clues how they plan to solve the technical problems. To access the floor either a steep tunnel or an elevator shaft is necessary. A train to the cavern instead of a road will make the cave development kind of environmentally friendly. Subsequently the cave was closed, newspapers guessed because of the increasing numbers of base jumpers. Probably it was just a security measure for the ongoing development. At least the developers are not against base jumping as they plan to reserve one of the entrances for base jumping. If the tour would include a live base jump as a show bit, this would be unique!
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