The top scientific objective of the project was to obtain a continuous, high-resolution (annual-decadal) record of past climates in the continental tropics over the past ~800 kyr. Other primary scientific objectives of the drilling program intersect several fields, including extensional basin evolution and neotectonics, evolutionary biology, and the environmental background to human origins. The critical role of the tropics in driving global circulation is widely recognized, but the climatic linkage between tropical Africa and the high latitudes at decadal-centennial through orbital timescales, has yet to be established.

Keywords: Africa, Malawi, Lake Drilling, Lake Malawi