out of Dibba and held only Khasab and Muscat, which they finally lost in 1650. Eleven years later, Jacob Vogel's description of the east coast of the Oman peninsula, prepared for the Dutch East India Company in 1666, contained the following: "Dabba (which we were unable to visit because of calm and counter currents) is a place (according to the interpreter assigned to us) with about 300 small houses constructed from branches of date trees. During the days of the Portuguese, there were here four fortresses of which the biggest one is still standing. This place also has a valley with a lot of date trees under which there are water wells, where one can get fresh water. At the Northern side of Dabba there is a small freshwater river where the fishermen live.". The 1900s witnessed land disputes over Dibba. Geology The Dibba Fault is an active fault, which means that it had a displacement or seismic activity during the geologically recent period, and is one of the two faults that run through the UAE. The fault crosses into Oman from the north and runs southward to the center of the Arabian Peninsula. Gulf News reported that people in Dibba have felt at least 150 tremors during 2003 and 2004 which indicates that there is a major earthquake waiting to happen in the area. Dibba also felt the 2005 Qeshm earthquake. The Mesozoic and the Cenozoic accretionary wedge is truncated on the western side by the right lateral fault, the Zendan Fault – Oman Line. West of the transform are the Zagros Mountains of southern Iran, the Musandam peninsula and the Oman Mountains, and the Arabian platform and the Dibba Fault. The Dibba Fault separates the ophiolites in the Oman Mountains from the Mesozoic carbonates in the Musandam Peninsula. On 31 March 2009, Gulfnews reported that the UAE's National Centre of Metrology and Seismology (NCMS) recorded two earth tremors, measuring magnitudes of 2.9 and 3.5 on the Richter scale, which shook the Gulf of Aden and the north of Dibba at 6.21 am and 9.35 am. The tremors were lightly felt in some areas of the northern emirates. Marine life In 2008 an algal bloom affected the sea around Dibba and reached the tourist hot-spots of 'Aqqah and Al-Faqeet, which contain several high-end resorts. 95% of corals in the Dibba Marine Protected Zone were destroyed and the fish population