9304962 Kelts This award supports a paleoenvironmental investigation of Lake Victoria under the auspices of the International Decade for the East African Lakes (IDEAL). A seismic reflection and side-scan sonar survey will be conducted to delineate modern sedimentary environments, determine previous lowstand shorelines, locate and measure thick sedimentary sequences, and identify promising core sites for the recovery of 20 meter sediment cores. The primary objective is to reconstruct a detailed environmental and climatic history of Lake Victoria and its environs over the last 15,000 years, and compare that record within the regional and global network of sites showing decadal and century-scale rapid climate change. This work will provide a chronologically robust, high resolution, multi-proxy mapping of the Lake Victoria system's response and sensitivity to climate variation. This work will be undertaken in close collaboration with the African scientific community. ***
