Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP)
The HSPDP is a large international collaborative project drilling lake sediments at five locations in East Africa associated with key hominin fossil sites. The HSPDP is investigating high resolution and continuous records from lake sedimentary cores to improve our understanding of how the interactions of paleoclimates and tectonics influenced human evolution. From north to south: Northern Awash, Chew Bahir, West Turkana, Baringo-Tugen Hills, and Lake Magadi drill sites. Drilling took place from 2013-2014. For more information visit the project website: hspdp.asu.edu/ |
My contribution to the project is the major and minor element analyses of volcanic glass in core and outcrop tephra from two HSPDP sites, the Northern Awash site in Ethiopia and the Baringo-Tugen Hills site in Kenya. For both sites I am investigating the history of volcanism, type of volcanism, and determining tephra correlations from the major and minor element geochemistry. I am also investigating the potential use of feldspars for geochemical correlations to compensate for glass-poor tephra found in the HSPDP sedimentary cores.
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DrillingFor each site a team a of experts drilled into the ancient lake sediments. A team of scientists were nearby to collect and catalog the core sections, each about 3 meters long.
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Core CollectionAfter the cores were drilled they were shipped to the University of Minnesota's LacCore Facility.
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Core ProcessingOnce the cores arrived at the University of Minnesota, LacCore Facility, the group of scientists were called in to split the cores, sample, image, etc.
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