Located in southwestern Afar Depression, Ethiopia. The project area is adjacent to the Hadar Research Project area where the famous Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy, was discovered.
The LGRP aims to expand our knowledge of depositional environments and Pliocene to Pleistocene vertebrate history associated with sediments found at Hadar, Ethiopia.
I am investigating the volcanic, tectonic, and stratigraphic history of two unmapped basins, Markaytoli and Asboli. I am targeting younger sediments unstudied in the LGRP area that have implications for Early Pleistocene environments and tectonic history and expanding the spatial extent of Busidima Formation (2.7-0.15 Ma) associated sediments. The Busidima Formation, studied in adjacent project areas, records a dramatic shift in depositional environments associated with a basin scale tectonic reorganization and climate change coincident with the extinction/evolution of Australopithecus afarensis and the appearance of the genus Homo and the earliest stone tool technology. My contribution is to help reconstruct a more complete Early Pleistocene depositional and geologic history of the Lower Awash Valley and thus help in the understanding of how changes in landscapes could have influenced the evolution of Early Pleistocene hominins.