A strategic plan for scientific drilling in the East African rift lakes

the mechanisms behind the geologic and biological evolution of the East African rift, and the stratigraphic architecture and environmental history of Lakes Turkana, Albert, and Tanganyika to initiate a series of breakout discussions. These breakouts defined critical scientific hypotheses and questions for future drilling projects, including: - What are the timing and dynamics of key transitions in the Plio-Pleistocene evolution of African climate as a consequence of global and tropical climate reorganizations, including the expansion of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, the termination of a permanent Pliocene El Nino, and the closure of the Indonesian seaway? - What is the sensitivity of East African temperature and rainfall to radiative forcing (insolation and greenhouse gases) and high-latitude processes? - What are the rates and amplitudes of millennial to decadal East African climate change, and how do these vary with changes in the Earth’s mean climate state? - What are the rates, sensitivities, and thresholds for ecological and evolutionary responses of ecosystems and communities to climate and environmental change across different timescales? - What are the regulating mechanisms and emergent properties of the dissociation and reassembly of aquatic ecosystems and communities through time?