The objectives of the proposed research are: 1) to assess the relative input of sediments from the Red Sea Hills to the Nile delta and thus, 2) to infer the degree and periodicity of paleoclimatic fluctuations in East Africa, particularly in the region closest to the mouth of the Nile. The methods to be employed in the study include: 1) petrographic examination of one hundred Red Sea Hills samples located in a collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History;p 2) determination of characteristic 'marker minerals' originating in the Red Sea Hills with scanning electron microscopy, cathode luminescence, or other as yet undetermined techniques; 3) identification of Red Sea Hills minerals in already logged and dated cores from the Nile delta located at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
