SGER: Planning For Scientific Drilling on Lake Malawi, East African Rift

Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports preliminary site investigations and logistics planning for an ambitious drilling project to recover a series of ~400 meter-long continuous sediment cores from Lake Malawi at the southern end of the East African Rift Valley. Previous studies from the region show the area to be a unique outdoor laboratory and archive for the study of tropical paleoclimatology, tectonics, and evolutionary biology. Consequently, Lake Malawi holds the promise of providing a high-resolution paleoclimate record of unparalleled antiquity in a region highly sensitive to climate change and critical for understanding the dynamics of the Earth's climate system.