US-Africa Planning Visit: Geolimnology Research on Lake Tanganyika

University Of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth MN

Investigators

Abstract

Johnson 0434609 This planning visit award will enable the PI to meet in July 2004 with scientists in Zambia and Belgium, and with research vessel operators in Tanzania, to plan for collaborative fieldwork on Lake Tanganyika, East Africa. This lake hold records of tropical climate history that are unparalleled in their signal strength, temporal resolution, continuity and duration. Unfortunately no investigations have rigorously linked tropical climate dynamics with composition of sediments that settle to the lake floor. The PI envisions an international collaborative field program in southern Lake Tanganyika, capturing the monthly rain of sediment through the water column and linking it to local climate and lake processes. A scientific team of collaborators from the U.S., Africa and Europe will be assembled and a detailed research plan will be formulated. Proposals will be developed for NSF and for appropriate funding sources in Europe and Africa in Fall 2004, requesting funds for the actual science to be undertaken, beginning in 2005. The broader impact of the planned research will involve the training of U.S. undergraduate and graduate students in an international setting in which they will participate in the fieldwork, laboratory analyses, and interpretation of data. The PI's paleoclimate research contributes significantly to the better understanding of climate dynamics over the continent that experiences more human fatalities due to droughts and floods than anywhere else on Earth.