Preliminary investigation of diatom flora distribution in transitional sediment sequences as a possible indicator of annual to decadal precipitation fluctuations

The potential of East African Rift Valley lakes as sources for robust equatorial climate records has been greatly demonstrated (Gasse, 1989; Johnson, 1996; Livingstone, 1965; Livingstone, 1975), yet studies of annual-to-decadal scale late-Holocene climatic variations are few (Cole et al., 2000; Johnson, 2001; Russell et al., 2003; Verschuren et al., 2000). Such studies are exceedingly important for East Africa where slight climatic alterations often can result in dramatic consequences on the highly agrarian human population of the region (i.e. widespread droughts and associated famine) (Hulme, 1992).