The conference will be for three days and will include a guided field trip to the main sabkha sites in Qatar including the historical Khor Al-Udeid sabakha. There will be international scholars who will be invited speakers providing a historical background about the pioneering research on the sabkha sediments that started during the sixties of the last century when the first recent dolomite was discovered in the sabkha of Qatar in 1961. The conference will have different sessions dedicated to the physical and chemical characteristics of the sabkha ecosystem and one to deal with its biological components including the microbial mats. There will be a dedicated two or three sessions to the subject of microbial dolomite as dolomite is very important reservoir in Qatar (the Khuff Formation) forming the main reservoir of the supergiant North gas field of Qatar. There will be also sessions for other biominerals such as clay minerals and the use of the biological components in soil remediation and archaeological site preservation. There will be also a dedicated session of the sabkha as terrestrial analogue of Mars since there is a new research suggesting that Mars was a sabkha before around 3.5 billion years and there are many lines of parallelism between the minerals found on Mars and the minerals present in the modern sabkhas. There will be also a discussion session on the future of sabkha research and the ways to improve the interdisciplinary nature of such research and the importance of Qatar’s sabkhas as the only remaining well-preserved sites in the world.
Mr. Jagir Baxi, Vice President and Ventures Manager at ExxonMobil
Prof. Hamad Al-Saad Al-Kuwari, Environmental Science Center Director
9:30 – 10:00
Coffee Break and picture exhibition
10:00 – 12:00
Session 1: General overview of the Sabkha in Qatar
Moderator: Saeed Al Meer
Keynote Speaker:
Tomaso Bontognali, “The sabkhas of Qatar: a treasure for scientific research”
Speakers:
Zulfa Al-Disi, “Exploring the role of microbially-produced organic molecules in formation of Mg-rich carbonate minerals”
Rajendran Sankaran, “Salinity and temporal stability of an inland sabkha of the State of Qatar”
Judith McKenzie, “Coastal Sabkhas of Qatar: Nature’s Laboratory for the Study of Biogeochemical Processes in Hypersaline Environments”
12:00 – 13:00
Lunch
13:00 – 15:00
Session 2: The dolomite problem
Moderator: PJ Moore
Keynote Speaker:
Maurice Tucker, “Dolomite: is it still a problem? Still some issues but microbes part of the answer ”
Speakers:
Adrian Immerhauser, “The ‘Dolomite Problem’ - A personal view”
Maria Mutti, “Strata-bound dolomite and stratigraphic patterns”
Peter Swart, “Hypersaline Origins of Bahamian Dolomites: Evidence from New Geochemical Proxies”
15:00 – 16:00
Coffee break and Poster competition
Day 2: January 17, 2023
8:00 – 10:00
Session 3: Microbial ecology in extreme evaporitic environments
Moderator: Radhouane Ben Hamadou
Keynote Speaker:
Dimtri Meier, “Thriving or surviving? Survival strategies and limitation of physiological processes in a microbial mat at salt saturation”
Speakers:
Nabil Zouari, “Understanding the biodiversity of bacterial adaptation in hypersaline evaporitic environments of Qatar Sabkhas”
Raeid Abed, “Structural-Functional analysis of extremely hypersaline microbial mats from the Arabian Peninsula”
Samir Jaoua, “Investigation and Application of Local Qatari Microbial resources for the Biological Control of pathogenic Bacteria, Insects and Mycotoxigenic Fungi”
10:00 – 10:20
Coffee Break
10:20 – 11:55
Session 4: The sabkha as a natural laboratory to understand the formation of hydrocarbon reservoirs
Moderator: Sophia Ghanimeh
Keynote Speaker:
Fadhil Sadooni, “Dolomites from the Carbonate-Evaporite strata of the Permian – Jurassic of Eastern Arabia”
Speakers:
Mahmoud Ashour, “Sabkhas in Qatar Peninsula”
Crisogono Vasconcelos, “Coupled silica and carbon cycles in hypersaline Environment, possible phage processes to mineralization”
Day 3: January 18, 2023
8:00 – 10:00
Session 5: The sabkhas of Qatar as a modern analogue for the study of early life
Moderator: Fadhil Sadooni
Keynote Speaker:
Martin Van Kranendonk, “The sabkhas of Qatar as a modern analogue for the study of early life in the 3.4 billion-year-old Strelley Pool Formation of the Pilbara Craton, Australia and the search for life on Mars”
Speakers:
Maria Dittirch, “Biomineralization within microbial mats during a transition from anoxygenic to oxygenic photosynthesis”
Jassim Al-Khayat, “Exploring the potentiality of Qatar coastal sabkhas to store organic carbon”
Kirstin Bergmann, “Sabkhas in the Neoproterozoic: Records of dolomite formation, climate, and microbial life”
10:00 – 10:20
Coffee Break
10:20 – 12:20
Session 6: The sabkhas of Qatar as Terrestrial analogues for the search of life on Mars
Moderator: Tomaso Bontognali
Keynote Speaker:
Jean-Luc Josset, “The ExoMars Mission, the search of life on Mars using CLUPI the CLose-UP Imager part of the science payload”
Speakers:
Zach Diloreto, “Hybrid Genomic and Spectroscopic Analyses of Gypsum from the Dohat Faishakh Sabkha in Qatar: Biomarkers and their Astrobiological Implications”
Franziska Blattmann, “Microbial polygons: defining a morphological biosignatures for the search for life on Mars”
Tomaso Bontognali, “Concluding remarks”
12:20 – 13:20
Sabkha protection plan – round table/closing session and announcement of poster competition results
