Workshop Call: DeepCHB (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)

Deep Chew Bahir Drilling Project (DeepCHB): Getting to the bottom of the Quaternary

WHERE 📍 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

WHEN 📅 30 June –  3 July, 2026

CALL ▶️ Deep Chew Bahir Drilling Project (DeepCHB)

MORE INFO ℹ️ https://www.icdp-online.org/projects/by-continent/africa/deepchb-ethiopia/

The Chew Bahir basin (CHB) in the southern Ethiopian Rift provides a unique natural archive offering critical insights into the interactions of climate, tectonics, ecosystems, and human activities during the Pleistocene. Building on the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP), the Deep Chew Bahir Drilling Project (DeepCHB) extends exploration to unprecedented depths to address innovative, transdisciplinary research questions centred around three new research themes: 

1. Ecosystem and Hydrological Dynamics
2. Human-Environment Interactions
3. Microbial and Ecosystem Resilience

The 2-3 km thick CHB sedimentary fill preserves a high-resolution fluviolacustrine Quaternary record of environmental and biogeographic history. By drilling to a depth of 1,200 m — well beyond the ~300 m explored in previous cores — DeepCHB aims to access the base of the Quaternary, enabling to fill critical knowledge gaps about interconnected processes shaping past ecosystems and human prehistory by integrating sedimentary, geochemical, geophysical, biological, archaeological, paleoanthropological and modelling data.

APPLICATION ▶️ to Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr (stefanie.kaboth-bahr(at)fu-berlin.de), Verena Foerster (V.Foerster(at)uni-koeln.de) and Asfawossen Asrat (asfawossen.asrat(at)aau.edu.et)

DEADLINE 📆 31 January 2026