Reconstructing paleoclimatic/paleoenvironmental evolution and volcanic ash dispersal during the late Pleistocene in the Western Tropical Pacific using lacustrine terrestrial records from the Malili Lake System, Sulawesi, Indonesia

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hendrik Vogel
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2010 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 189951636

Given their approximate age of 1 – 4 million years Lakes Matano and Towuti, located on the Island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, comprise valuable archives of past climatic and environmental change as well as volcanic activity in a terrestrial environment of the Western Tropical Pacific. This proposal seeks funds for the recovery of up to 30 m long sediment sequences from these lakes in order to evaluate and investigate late Pleistocene and Holocene climate and volcanic history in central Indonesia. Our proposed research builds upon previous seismic reflection and field surveys conducted under the auspices of our American and Indonesian collaborators, which evidenced that both lakes contain acoustically highly stratified sediment accumulating at rates ideal for late Pleistocene/Holocene paleo studies. Sediment cores will be shipped to the University of Cologne, Germany, for analyses by German, American and Indonesian collaborators. This work will provide fundamentally important new insights into the history of Indonesian convection and hydrology and its relationships to global climate changes, as well as new information regarding the dispersal of ash from nearby volcanoes, age, origin, and past changes in the Malili Lakes, a unique and fragile lake ecosystem.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants