International Research Fellowship Program: East African Paleoclimate from Ancient Lake Clays: Linking Ecosystem Change with Hominid Evolution

[202612]国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行3至24个月的研究。该计划的奖励为联合研究提供了机会，并利用独特或互补的设施、专业知识和国外的实验条件。该奖项将支持Daniel M. Deocampo博士与William Dubbin博士在英国伦敦自然历史博物馆开展为期13个月的研究。该项目将通过重建东非过去200万年中选定间隔的区域古气候，来检验当前将气候变化、古生态学和人类进化联系起来的假设。这将通过对Olorgesailie（肯尼亚）和Olduvai（坦桑尼亚）盆地的超细古湖泊粘土的实验室分析来完成，以提供古代环境条件的证据，并通过实验和现代环境条件下的水-矿物相互作用的实验室分析来指导古代粘土的解释。东非水文封闭盆地对气候变化敏感，可能提供环境变化的相关沉积记录。通过这一工作，将得到90万年前旋回转变前后Olorgesailie和Olduvai古湖泊盐度/碱度波动的部分年代学。与海洋记录的良好相关性将是非洲陆-海古气候的第一个相关性，而较差的相关性将促使进一步探索轨道周期在非洲环境变化中的作用。粘土矿物学和地球化学的应用将在了解东非生态系统和早期人科动物方面发挥重要作用。杜宾博士领导的研究团队非常适合在这个项目上进行合作，他们在研究矿物转化、矿物过程中的生物效应、粘土和实验方法方面具有专业知识。

0202612DeocampoThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a thirteen-month research fellowship by Dr. Daniel M. Deocampo to work with Dr. William Dubbin at the Natural History Museum in London, United Kingdom.This project will test current hypotheses linking climate change, paleoecology, and hominid evolution by reconstructing regional paleoclimate in East Africa during selected intervals over the past 2 million years. This will be accomplished by laboratory analysis of ultrafine paleolake clays from the Olorgesailie (Kenya) and Olduvai (Tanzania) basins to provide evidence of ancient environmental conditions, and laboratory analysis of water-mineral interactions under experimental and modern environmental conditions to guide the interpretation of ancient clays. The hydrologically-closed basins on East Africa are sensitive to climate change and may provide relevant sedimentary records of environmental change. From this work, will come a partial chronology of Olorgesailie and Olduvai paleolake salinity/alkalinity fluctuations before and after the cyclicity shift 900,000 years ago. Good correlation with marine records would be among the first African land-sea paleoclimate correlations and poor correlation would prompt further exploration of the role of orbital cyclicity in African environmental change. This application of clay mineralogy and geochemistry will play an important role in understanding East African ecosystems and early hominids.The research team led by Dr. Dubbin is uniquely suited to collaborate on this project, with expertise in studying mineral transformations, biological effects on mineral processes, clays, and experimental approaches.