Arabia is one of the most enigmatic and unknown continents on Earth. The vast Rub al-Khali desert, known as the Empty Quarter, occupying most of the landmass of Arabia was one of the last of the great continental extreme environments to be explored. Richard Burton, William Palgrave, Charles Doughty, Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark were a few of the redoubtable explorers who ventured into the vast desert wasteland of the Rub al-Khali, in what is now Saudi Arabia and the frankincense coast of Dhofar, Hadramaut and the Magreb (Yemen) in south Arabia. Although local bedouin certainly made long-distance camel treks across parts of Arabia, the first recorded north–south crossing of the Empty Quarter was achieved by Bertram Thomas in 1930–1931, described in his book ‘Arabia Felix’.

This memoir is based on studies by Open University (OU) and associated personnel between 1975-85 and represents a fullsome precis, correlation and evaluation of work presented in eleven Ph.D. theses and numerous scientific publications. In total, it represents some 48 man-years of effort. The names of persons associated with the research project at various times, together with their status and affiliation, are listed in the table below. 

As a result of an extensive program of structural mapping in the ultramafic section of the Oman ophiolite, maps of mantle flow below the spreading center of origin have been drawn. They reveal a mantle diapiric system in which the uppermost mantle flow diverges from diapirs 10-15 km across, which could have been spaced by an average distance of 50 km. Some diapirs could have been located off-axis.