NSF PR 02-10 - February 04, 2002
Four Universities Receive NSF Grants for Scientific
Drilling of Lake Malawi in East Africa
Researchers from four universities have been awarded
a $2 million grant through the National Science Foundation's
Earth System History (ESH) program to take to the
next level the scientific drilling of large lakes
for paleoclimate research. The Global Lake 800 Drilling
System (GLAD800) will be deployed to Lake Malawi at
the southern end of the East African Rift Valley in
a project involving researchers from Syracuse University,
the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University
of Rhode Island and the University of Arizona. This
recently acquired drilling rig is dedicated to recovering
undisturbed scientific cores samples from the bottom
of large lakes.
At more than 700 meters in depth and more than seven
million years old, Lake Malawi is one of the largest,
deepest and oldest lakes on Earth. The archives of
paleoclimatic information preserved in its quiet depths,
inaccessible until now, hold promise to reveal important
new clues concerning the evolution of Earth's climate.
"This is a risky scientific expedition, to be sure,"
says NSF paleoclimate program director David Verardo.
"We are moving a new drilling system into a technologically-challenging
environment. Lake Malawi is deep and the weather window
for drilling operations is short and unforgiving.
What spurs us on, however, is the potential scientific
payoff in recovering critical baseline data on Earth's
climate system that will help us understand the range
of natural climate variability. Betting on future
climates without such baseline data is like investing
in a company's stock without assessing its past performance.
It just isn't prudent."
Lake Malawi will provide "a unique, continuous and
high-resolution (annual to decadal) record of past
climates in the continental tropics over the last
800,000 years," says Christopher Scholz, an earth
scientist at Syracuse University and principal investigator
on the project.
Through their research, Scholz and colleagues Thomas
Johnson of the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Andrew
Cohen and David Dettman of the University of Arizona,
and John King of the University of Rhode Island will
attempt to understand the links between low-latitude
solar insolation and high-latitude ice volume and
their effect on tropical climates.
"Understanding how African climate variability may
be influenced by longer-term climate variations such
as glacial interglacial wet and dry climate cycles
is important to understanding global climate," notes
Johnson.
Furthermore, the researchers will use the sediments
recovered from Lake Malawi to explore the biological
evolution of aquatic organisms in the region over
time. "This research will complement ongoing research
and educational activities at Lake Tanganyika, where
NSF has supported an international science field station
for several years," says Cohen of the University of
Arizona, co-investigator and director of the Lake
Tanganyika field station.
"The GLAD800 is a tremendous tool for international
paleoclimate research," says King of the University
of Rhode Island. "With this innovative and flexible
drilling system, the science community will demonstrate
a whole new range of capability for fundamental research
in paleoclimatology while stretching the boundaries
of exploration for maximum public benefit."
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