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

该奖项是对美国为一个高度合作的国际科学钻探探险的支持，该探险旨在收集新的数据，通过从马拉维湖恢复长岩心来帮助了解地球气候。利用全球湖泊钻探800钻探系统(GLAD800)，将尝试从东非裂谷南端恢复一个距今约80万年的长核心。拟议研究的主要科学目标是：1)研究热带陆地非洲气候对低纬日照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叠加在干/湿气候循环形式的冰川-间冰期变化上，3)研究非洲年际气候变异性可能是如何由于长期气候变化而改变的。如果研究人员取得成功，由此产生的研究将通过提供关键气候区域热带气候的高分辨率地面记录，推动全球变化研究领域的发展。与欧洲和非洲的科学同行进行拟议的合作，作为智力和财务合作伙伴，极大地增强了这一努力取得成功的潜力。从马拉维湖钻探中吸取的经验教训将提供资料，说明使用GLAD800等移动式钻探系统作为古气候研究工具的实用性和实用性。

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.