The Turkana Basin Field School proceeds apace. Today the palaeontology module began with Prof Doug Boyer of Duke University who arrived at TBI yesterday. Prof Doug Boyer of Duke University One of the first exercises was putting the earth's history and timeline into perspective. It all started with a bang a [...]
A major theme in this week’s Geology lectures has been sedimentology and river systems. For their lab practical, the students collected and analyzed sediment samples from different sites of the Turkwel River. By applying a depositional model, the students hypothesized about the river’s flow history. This semester’s first overnight field excursion was to Lothagam. The [...]
One of the high points of the TBI Field School is the trip to Central Island. We visited the island at the end of the ecology module just over a week ago. Central Island is a unique and stunning volcanic island in the very middle of Lake Turkana. Rising out of the blue-green waters, it [...]
The first week of the Geology module wrapped up with a field excursion to the Lothidok Range. Some outcrops at Lothidok expose Oligocene and Miocene strata and have in the past yielded fossils that are important to understanding primate evolution. Dr. Lepre led the students day hiking across a portion of Lothidok while they surveyed [...]
The Geology module of the Fall 2013 Field School is underway and the students are enthusiastically hard at work. Dr. Chris Lepre of Rutgers University is leading the class through the geologic events that have shaped East Africa and by extension our own evolution. Class discussions have included geologic time, radioisotopes, stratigraphy, hydrology, tectonics and [...]
As part of the Ecology Module we have been exploring the Turkwel River next to the Turkana Basin Institute. Learning about river life by sampling using sieves This involved looking at aquatic life and learning about the food web in the river, as well as that of Lake Turkana. It was refreshing to [...]
A major ecological issue that the students have been learning about is that of invasive species. As humans have moved about the planet and modified the environments, one of the impacts we have had is through introducing plants and animals to habitats where they did not occur naturally and evolve with other species. One of [...]
One of the most fascinating aspects of life around TBI is how different organisms cope with the heat and drought. The main mammal herbivores in this region are goats. Goats are browsers that are very efficient at consuming vegetation. Due to many years of overgrazing, large areas of northern Kenya are referred to as 'goated' [...]
The Turkana Basin Field School for Fall 2013 has begun! The students made their long journey to Kenya from New York and set off on a short safari into the Great Rift Valley to Lake Elementeita, Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. We started at Lake Elementeita in the Rift Valley where we went for a [...]
One of the techniques we use to document a site that we excavate is to get an aerial view from above and so we take advantage of the good wind we have and suspend a camera from a kite. If we sent the camera up high enough you can get a wide area in quite [...]
We had a high profile visit a few weeks ago at TBI-Turkwel and TBI-Ileret by the Deputy President William Ruto, Dr. Hassan Wario, Minister for Cultural Heritage and Sports, the Governor of the Turkana County, Governor Nanok and several senior government officials. The visit was at the invitation of Richard Leakey. They visitors arrived by helicopter in [...]
Over the past year at Ileret there has been great progress with the building of the permanent facility. Three buildings are now completed and are being used, the power supply is in place and the current building is being focused on the large building for the laboratories as well as on the student dining area [...]
Last year much of a pig skeleton was recovered from a rugged and rocky hillside covered in a tumbling dark and broken slabs of sandstone including many foot bones. We revisited this site and during long rains earlier this year, more of the pig skeleton had eroded from the slope. We were able to collect [...]
The Koobi Fora Research Project is back in the field again this year.Its been busy and exciting so far so finally a few posts from the field season.With one good fossil coming out of the ground already it prompted a visit by Richard Leakey who came and watched the proceedings for a morning.We are [...]
As part of the 3D Printing for Science and Sustainable Development workshop, Louise Leakey was invited to speak about the African Fossils project in the context of 3D Printing for use in education. A small gathering of some 65 people from many different countries met at the The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, [...]
Renowned anthropologist Meave Leakey, a research professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University, has been named a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. She is among 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries that were elected in recognition for their distinguished and [...]
In Kenya, rain is a blessing. It is something to celebrate if you have rain on your wedding day. If rain is a blessing, then nature wanted to shower the last few days at the Turkana Basin Institute with signs that this was a blessed experience. As Dr. Matt Skinner from University College [...]
The Pleistocene is sometimes called the Ice Age, but ice was as rare 2 million years ago as it is today in the Turkana Basin. Instead the glaciers in the north caused the deserts and arid grasslands to expand as the ice advanced and the expansion of the forests when the ice retreated. Our early [...]
When scientists first set out to study human origins, the Victorian armchair theorists figured it was our big brains that set us apart from the animal kingdom. They expected the fossils of our earliest ancestors to have voluminous noggins but not be built for walking. This walking business would emerge after we realized how useful [...]
Human ancestors. This is why the Turkana Basin is on the paleontological map. Sure it preserves an intact record of the grassland ecosystem taking over East Africa and the immigration and local radiation of bizarre and wonderful plants and animals, but it’s the human story that draws us to Turkana. It’s not an inexplicable bias. [...]