Shabwah

Shabwah is a governorate of Yemen. Its main town is Ataq. During the Yemeni Civil War in 2015, the province became a battleground. The battle, known as the Shabwah Campaign, ended on August 15, 2015, after forces loyal to the government of Abd Rabbah Mansour Hadi defeated Houthi rebels.

The basaltic complex of the Bir Ali volcanic field in Shabwa Governorate, related to the Afar mafic plume, is located in the western part of the WSW−NEN trending Gulf of Aden coastal uplift and formed in the Pliocene to Quaternary. It covers an area of 450 km² and the whole complex forms two slightly rising shield−like elevations mounted by numerous volcano cones different in size and altitude. Most of the volcanoes consist of basaltic tuffs and scoria. Only a few flat eruptive cones situated in the north part are composed of basaltic lavas. Individual volcanoes are characterized by central type eruption. They are distributed along the coastal plain of the Gulf of Aden starting from Perim Island in the west to Bir Ali in the east. Mafic to ultramafic xenoliths, which are rarely coated with thin lava, are mainly enclosed by alkali olivine basaltic pyroclastites.