“Pleistocene record of a dynamic, fluctuating lacustrine margin from the Turkana Basin, Kenya,” co-authored by Associate Professor of Geosciences Catherine (Cat) Beck, appears in the October issue of Quaternary Science Reviews from Elsevier. Researchers from Rutgers University, VU Amsterdam, Aarhus University, Wake Forest University, Arizona State University were also involved in this work.
The group used scientific drill cores from continental eastern Africa to give them what Beck describes as “excellent archives of proxies.” The drill cores, referred to as “WTK13,” provided layers of preserved sediment that served as record of past environmental and climate conditions in the area, allowing the researchers to “contextualize the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment in which early hominins evolved.”
The authors noted that WTK13 offered “an unprecedented window into deposition on a dynamic fluctuating lacustrine margin,” but acknowledged that “for members of the genus Homo more research is needed to better understand if factors beyond access to fresh water and the resources it contained motivated their occupation of this environment.”
Posted July 16, 2026
