Journal
GEOLOGY
Volume 42, Issue 11, Pages 955-958Publisher
GEOLOGICAL SOC AMER, INC
DOI: 10.1130/G35915.1
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Funding
- Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) [NE/F008635/1]
- NERC Isotope Geoscience Laboratory grant [IP/1082/1108]
- University College London Graduate School bursary grant
- Quaternary Research Association Bill Bishop Award
- NERC [nigl010001] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [nigl010001] Funding Source: researchfish
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci [1322017] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Late Cenozoic climate history in Africa was punctuated by episodes of variability, characterized by the appearance and disappearance of large freshwater lakes within the East African Rift Valley. In the Baringo-Bogoria basin, a well-dated sequence of diatomites and fluviolacustrine sediments documents the precessionally forced cycling of an extensive lake system between 2.70 Ma and 2.55 Ma. One diatomite unit was studied, using the oxygen isotope composition of diatom silica combined with X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and taxonomic assemblage changes, to explore the nature of climate variability during this interval. Data reveal a rapid onset and gradual decline of deepwater lake conditions, which exhibit millennial-scale cyclicity of similar to 1400-1700 yr, similar to late Quaternary Dansgaard-Oeschger events. These cycles are thought to reflect enhanced precipitation coincident with increased monsoonal strength, suggesting the existence of a teleconnection between the high latitudes and East Africa during this period. Such climatic variability could have affected faunal and floral evolution at the time.
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