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Article Dans Une Revue Solid Earth Année : 2016

Stepwise drying of Lake Turkana at the end of the African Humid Period: a forced regression modulated by solar activity variations?

Résumé

Although the timing of the termination of the African Humid Period (AHP) is now relatively well estab- lished, the modes and controlling factors of this drying are still debated. Here, through a geomorphological approach, we characterize the regression of Lake Turkana at the end of the AHP. We show that lake level fall during this period was not continuous but rather stepwise and consisted of five episodes of rapid lake level fall separated by episodes marked by slower rates of lake level fall. Whereas the overall regres- sive trend reflects a decrease in regional precipitations linked to the gradual reduction in Northern Hemisphere summer in- solation, itself controlled by orbital precession, we focus dis- cussion on the origin of the five periods of accelerated lake level fall. We propose that these periods are due to temporary reductions in rainfall across the Lake Turkana area associ- ated with repeated westward displacement of the Congo Air Boundary (CAB) during solar activity minima.
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hal-01414910 , version 1 (13-12-2021)

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Alexis Nutz, Mathieu Schuster. Stepwise drying of Lake Turkana at the end of the African Humid Period: a forced regression modulated by solar activity variations?. Solid Earth, 2016, 7, pp.1609-1618. ⟨10.5194/se-7-1609-2016⟩. ⟨hal-01414910⟩
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