Public Lecture on Tectonics, Climate and Human Evolution in Africa

On Saturday 13 May 2017 I will give a public lecture on “Tectonics, Climate and Human Evolution in Africa”. The lecture will be part of the Potsdam Science Day (Potsdamer Tag der Wissenschaften). The lecture takes place in the MPI Central Building in Golm, Seminar Room Z-1.053A / Z-1.052, between 15 and 15:30.

Within the framework of the international Hominin Sites and Paleolaces Drilling Projects (HSPDP), gaps in the environmental history of East Africa, the habitat of early human ancestry, are to be closed by means of deep drilling. As one of the project leaders, I will take you on a journey into the cradle of mankind and report on the latest expedition results. Together with Norbert Marwan at the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, I currently leading project on “Trends, rhythms and events in East African climate: statistical analysis of the paleoclimare records of the long sediment cores of the Chew Bahir basin”. The aim of the project is (1) to establish a robust age-depth model for the sediment cores, (2) to correlate the Chew Bahir record with other records within and outside HSPDP, (3) to detect trends, rhythms and events in the environmental record of the basin, and (4) identify recurrent, characteristic types of climate transitions in the time series, as compared with the ones of the other HSPDP sites and climate records outside HSPDP.