Majlis al Jinn

Majlis al Jinn also Majlis al-Jinn (meeting/gathering place of the Jinn), local name: Khoshilat Maqandeli is the ninth largest cave chamber in the world, as measured by the surface area of the floor. It ranks higher when measured by volume. The cave is located in a remote area of the Selma Plateau at 1,380 meters above sea level in the Sultanate of Oman, 100 km south-east from Muscat.

Description

The Selma Plateau is a shallow syncline on the north-eastern limb of the Jabal Bani Jabir anticline. The cave was formed in fossiliferous carbonate rocks of the Middle Eocene Hadhramaut Group, Dammam Formation. It is one of several caves on the Selma Plateau.

Majlis al Jinn is a single chamber measuring about 310 meters by 225 meters, with a domed ceiling 120 meters high and three entrances in the roof. The totally free-standing roof is only about 40 meters thick over most of the cave. The deepest part of the cave is 178 meters below the top of the highest entrance. The volume of the chamber is approximately 4,000,000 cubic meters, and the floor area is 58,000 square meters.

When it was surveyed in 1985, Majlis al Jinn was the second largest known cave chamber in the world by...
Read More