Collaborative Research: Scientific Drilling in Lake Malawi, East African Rift

该奖项为美国对一个高度合作的国际科学钻探探险队的贡献提供支持，该探险队通过从马拉维湖回收长岩心来收集新数据，以帮助了解地球气候。 将利用全球湖泊钻探800号钻探系统（GLAD 800），尝试从东非裂谷南端恢复一个约80万年前的长岩心。拟议研究的主要科学目标是：1）研究非洲热带陆地气候对低纬度日射和高纬度冰量轨道强迫变化的响应，2）确定高频气候变化是否以湿/干气候周期的形式叠加在冰川-间冰期变化上，3）研究非洲年际气候变率如何因长期气候变化而发生变化。如果研究人员成功，由此产生的研究将通过提供一个关键气候区域热带气候的高分辨率陆地记录，推动全球变化研究领域的发展。 与来自欧洲和非洲的科学同事作为智力和财政伙伴的拟议合作，大大提高了这一奋进取得成功的潜力。 从马拉维湖钻探中吸取的经验教训将提供有关使用GLAD 800等移动的钻探系统作为古气候研究工具的实用性和实用性的信息。

This award provides support for the U.S. contribution to a highly collaborative international scientific drilling expedition to collect new data to aid in understanding Earth's climate by recovering long cores from Lake Malawi. Recovery of a long core from the southern end of the East African Rift Valley dating some 800,000 years into the Earth's past will be attempted with the use of the Global Lake Drilling 800 Drilling System (GLAD800).The key scientific goals of the proposed research are to: 1) examine the response of the tropical terrestrial African climate to changes in low-latitude insolation and high-latitude ice volume orbital forcing, 2) determine if high-frequency climate variations are superimposed on glacial-interglacial variations in the form of wet/dry climate cycles, and 3) examine how inter-annual African climate variability may have changed as a result of longer-term climate variations.If the researchers are successful, the resulting research will move the field of global change research forward by providing a high-resolution terrestrial record of tropical climate in a key climatic region. The proposed collaboration with scientific colleagues from Europe and Africa, as both intellectual and financial partners, greatly enhances the potential for success of this endeavor. The lessons learned from drilling in Lake Malawi will provide information as to the utility and practicality of using a mobile drilling system such as the GLAD800 as a tool for paleoclimatic research.