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

0202612 Deocampo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三到二十四个月的研究。 该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，以及使用独特或互补的设施，专业知识和国外的实验条件。该奖项将支持博士十三个月的研究奖学金丹尼尔M。Deocampo将与联合王国伦敦自然历史博物馆的William Dubbin博士合作。该项目将通过重建过去200万年来选定时间段内东非的区域古气候来检验目前将气候变化、古生态学和原始人类进化联系起来的假设。 这将通过对来自Olorgesailie（肯尼亚）和Olduvai（坦桑尼亚）盆地的超细古湖粘土进行实验室分析来完成，以提供古代环境条件的证据，并在实验和现代环境条件下对水-矿物相互作用进行实验室分析，以指导对古代粘土的解释。 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。 从这项工作中，将得出一个部分年表的Olorgesailie和Olduvai古湖盐度/碱度波动之前和之后的周期性转变90万年前。 与海洋记录的良好相关性将是非洲第一批陆海古气候相关性，而相关性差将促使进一步探索轨道周期性在非洲环境变化中的作用。 这种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原始人类方面发挥重要作用。Dubbin博士领导的研究团队非常适合在这个项目上合作，他们在研究矿物转化、矿物过程的生物效应、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.