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Project
Variability in depositional processes throughout a 260,000-year lake- sediment archive from Lake Challa (equatorial East Africa) – a paleoclimate reconstruction based on multi-proxy provenance analysis of the terrigenous fraction (FWOAL929)
This project will be undertaken in the framework of the UGent-coordinated international lake- drilling project ICDP-DeepCHALLA. Drilling operations were successfully carried out in November
2016. The entire sedimentary infill of the lake basin could be retrieved, with excellent recovery and outstanding quality. The sediments are continuously laminated and provide a unique, undisturbed and detailed 260,000-year-long sediment record from equatorial East Africa. The proposed project has two main objectives. Firstly, it will construct the detailed depositional framework of this long archive, which will help determining how the textural, geochemical and biological information contained in these sediments should be interpreted. Secondly, detailed examination of particle-size distributions and their specific end members, mineralogy, geochemistry and isotope geochemistry
of the clastic material brought to the lake by surface runoff and by aeolian processes will allow us to detect and quantify past changes in its origin and abundance, which reflect changes in lake depth and the seasonality of rainfall and wind patterns through time. Combined with other sedimentary proxies of past moisture balance and landscape change, the results of this project will permit a more coherent, mechanistic understanding of East African climate history during the entire time frame that modern humans have existed, and inhabited this region.
2016. The entire sedimentary infill of the lake basin could be retrieved, with excellent recovery and outstanding quality. The sediments are continuously laminated and provide a unique, undisturbed and detailed 260,000-year-long sediment record from equatorial East Africa. The proposed project has two main objectives. Firstly, it will construct the detailed depositional framework of this long archive, which will help determining how the textural, geochemical and biological information contained in these sediments should be interpreted. Secondly, detailed examination of particle-size distributions and their specific end members, mineralogy, geochemistry and isotope geochemistry
of the clastic material brought to the lake by surface runoff and by aeolian processes will allow us to detect and quantify past changes in its origin and abundance, which reflect changes in lake depth and the seasonality of rainfall and wind patterns through time. Combined with other sedimentary proxies of past moisture balance and landscape change, the results of this project will permit a more coherent, mechanistic understanding of East African climate history during the entire time frame that modern humans have existed, and inhabited this region.
Date:1 Jan 2019 → 31 Dec 2022
Keywords:paleoclimate
Disciplines:Sedimentology