Martian Stamp

UAE Government Media Office

There’s no set formula to create ink from volcanic basalt rocks. We had to learn & adapt. The volcanic basalt rocks, which give Mars its rusted red look, can also be found in Mleiha desert in the UAE. Special missions were conducted by experts & geologists to collect the rocks.

The rocks were ground with a mechanical jaw crusher. The resulting crushed rock sand was then put through a vibrating pulveriser to crush the sand into fine dust. We then carefully extracted pigments from the powdered red sand. And that’s how the first-ever Martian ink was born.

After thorough testing, it was ready to be stamped on the paper surface of passports in the shape of the final design that we created specifically for this stamp.

The unique passport stamp immediately got the attention of global media with over 50 publications covering it garnering a reach of over 1.5 billion unique visitors.