United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates occupies the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, bordered by the Persian Gulf to the west and the Gulf of Oman and Hajar Mountains to the northeast. Like most of the Arabian Peninsula interior, the UAE sits on the stable Arabian Platform — an ancient craton that has not been deformed by active plate collision for hundreds of millions of years. The principal seismic hazard in the UAE comes not from local faults but from distant sources: the Makran [[subduction-zone]] to the northeast in Pakistan and Iran, which is capable of generating magnitude 8+ earthquakes and associated [[tsunami]]s, and from the Zagros fold belt in Iran across the Gulf.

The UAE's earthquake record shows that the country has experienced only minor local seismicity. The Hajar Mountains in the northeast Emirate of Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah represent an obducted ophiolite complex from the Tethys Ocean, similar to Oman's Semail Ophiolite, and some residual fault activity remains along its margins. The 2002 Gulf of Oman earthquake (magnitude 5.6) caused minor felt effects in the UAE. The construction of high-rise buildings in Dubai and Abu Dhabi has raised awareness of long-period [[seismic-wave]] amplification effects from distant Zagros earthquakes. The 2013 Gulf earthquake sequence caused building evacuations in Dubai. The most significant seismic planning concern for the UAE is the Makran subduction zone — the 1945 Makran earthquake generated tsunami waves that reportedly reached Muscat, and similar waves could strike UAE coastlines with limited warning time.

The geological foundation of the UAE consists of Tertiary limestone, sandstone, and evaporite sequences underlain by the thick sedimentary cover of the Arabian Platform. Sand dunes and sabkha (salt flat) deposits cover much of the desert interior. The gentle anticlines that trap the UAE's oil and gas reserves are ancient structural features unrelated to active tectonics. Building codes in the UAE have progressively incorporated seismic design requirements in recognition of the Makran [[subduction-zone]] hazard, and tsunami evacuation planning for the eastern (Gulf of Oman) coast has been developed in coordination with Oman and Pakistan. The primary focus of seismic risk management in the UAE is thus the indirect hazard from distant megathrust events rather than the direct hazard from local fault rupture.