A conference which is the first of its kind for Abu Dhabi will be held next week to introduce major fossil discoveries to the public and encourage a deeper understanding of the emirates ancient past.

The first Baynunah Palaeontology Conference, organised by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi), will run on Wednesday, December 10 at the Manarat Al Saadiyat Auditorium on Saadiyat Island.

The conference is part of the Baynunah Palaeontology Project which is a collaborative initiative between TCA Abu Dhabi and the Peabody Museum of Natural History of the USAs Yale University and has involved experts from the USA, Europe and the Middle East. It follows earlier research projects by TCA Abu Dhabi and the former Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey in the Baynunah Formation fossil beds in the emirates western region of Al Gharbia.

A large number of fossil sites have been discovered widely exposed over Al Gharbia, explained Mohammed Amer Al Neyadi, Director, Historic Environment Department, TCA Abu Dhabi. Most sites in the Baynunah Formation have yielded fossilised bones showing a diversity of animals lived in the Arabian Peninsula in the late Miocene Epoch, which was between six and eight million years ago. The Baynunah rocks and fossils indicate that back then, a river system ran across the Arabian Peninsula through what is today the United Arab Emirates.

The conference, which will feature experts from TCA Abu Dhabi, Berlins Museum fur Naturkunde, Yale, and leading institutions in Italy, the UK, Germany, the USA and France, will take the audience on a journey back to the Abu Dhabi over 7 million years ago through 30 years of discovery. The audience will hear of a geodatabase of fossil sites and learn of the collection and preparation of fossils.

Theyll also hear, from an expert from the University of Poitiers in France, how hippopotamuses once roamed Abu Dhabi and theyll learn of their evolution and the significance of fossil hippos discovered in the Baynunah Formation, as well as other smaller mammals which roamed Al Gharbia.

Therell be information too on the environmental changes in the emirate and the role micro-crustaceans played in bringing them about, the history of fossil reptiles and amphibians found in Arabia, the regions bird history and evidence of the last gomphotheres which were the first elephants at the crossroads of evolution to be found in Al Gharbia.