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The Turkana Basin (TB) in the East African Rift System (EARS) (Figure 1) provides an unparalleled opportunity to understand our origins as a species due to its remarkably rich fossil record which has been intensely studied for over six decades (Wood and Leakey, 2011). However, because geologic and paleoanthropologic research has focused on outcrops, integrating these records involves contending with both spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Working with these two variables complicates the scientific community's ability to parse out the impact of tectonics vs climate on shaping the paleoenvironmental context in which hominins evolved over the past 4 Ma. The Deep Drilling in the Turkana Basin (DDTB) project aims to recover a novel long core sedimentary record to minimize the impact of spatial paleoenvironmental variability on paleoclimatic and tectonic reconstructions, and provide insight into the sequence and significance of climate and environmental change over the last 4 Ma in this key paleoanthropologic locality. The proposed project will significantly advance existing paradigms surrounding rift development, climatic and environmental change, and the evolution of hominins and their associated ecosystems. Through this international collaboration, we will provide support and training for the next generation of African scientists through unique partnerships with Kenyan organizations such as the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) and Turkana University College (TUC).

• DDTB seeks to leverage advances in scientific continental drilling to collect a core record through the entire Plio-Pleistocene succession in the TB. The proposed record will address the overarching question of whether climate change contributed to the evolution of hominins by placing a high-fidelity continental paleoclimatic archive directly into one of the richest paleoanthropology contexts. A long core from the TB will enable the research community to address questions including but not limited to: Q1- Is the Turkana Basin linearly becoming more arid through time? Q2- How has climate variability and periodicity changed over the past 4 Ma? Q3- How have tectonism and magmatism in the Broadly Rifted Zone (BRZ) in the East African Rift System altered the landscape and shaped the hydro-connections of the Turkana Basin? Q4- Was tectonics rather than climate the main direct driver of hominin evolution?

Climate, Paleoanthropology, Paleoenvironmental Change, Tectonics, Turkana Basin

Latitude: 4.15311, Longitude: 36.052264