Evidence for millennial-scale interactions between Hg cycling and hydroclimate from Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana

June 12, 2025
WDG

Open access:

Paine AR, Frieling J, Shanahan TM, Mather TA, McKay N, Robinson SA, Pyle DM, Fendley IM, Kiely R, Gosling WD. 2025. Evidence for millennial-scale interactions between Hg cycling and hydroclimate from Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana. Climate of the Past 21(4): 817–839. DOI: 10.5194/cp-21-817-2025

Heat, hydroclimate and herbivory

January 6, 2025
WDG

Mapping Ancient Africa Quaternary International special issue article #5

Kiely, R.E., Paine, A.R., McMichael, C.H. & Gosling, W.D. (2025) Heat, hydroclimate and herbivory: A late-Pleistocene record of environmental change from tropical western Africa. Quaternary International 717, 109636. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2024.109636

To find the complete list of articles in the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International click here.

Mapping Ancient Africa: Video of seminar 14

February 29, 2024
WDG

The 14th Mapping Ancient Africa seminar took place on Thursday 28th February 2024. The seminar was delivered by Mathias Vinnepand (Leibniz-Institute for Applied Geophysics Hannover, Germany) and presented recent advances in developing a chronology for the Lake Bosumtwi sediment record over the last c. 1 million years. 

Details of this seminar can be found here. You can find more Mapping Ancient Africa seminar videos on the “Ecology of the Past” YouTube channel.

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Mapping Ancient Africa: Seminar 14

February 28, 2024
WDG

The first Mapping Ancient Africa online seminar of 2024 will take place on 28 February (17:00 CET). 

  • Speaker:  Mathias Vinnepand (Leibniz-Institute for Applied Geophysics Hannover, Germany)
  • Title: An age-depth model for Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana) to reconstruct one million years of West African climate and environmental change
  • Related publication: Vinnepand, M., Zeeden, C., Wonik, T., Gosling, W., Noren, A., Kück, J., Pierdominici, S., Voigt, S., Abadi, M.S., Ulfers, A., Danour, S., Afrifa, K. & Kaboth-Bahr, S. (2024) An age-depth model for Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana) to reconstruct one million years of West African climate and environmental change. Quaternary Science Reviews 325, 108478. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108478

The seminar will be delivered via Zoom. The link for the seminar can be obtained from the MAA Slack channel or by contacting the chair of this seminar (Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr). If you want to know more about the Mapping Ancient Africa project visit our web pages and please do not hesitate to get in contact if you want to get involved.

INQUAlogo

An age-depth model for Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana) to reconstruct one million years of West African climate and environmental change

January 8, 2024
WDG

Vinnepand, M., Zeeden, C., Wonik, T., Gosling, W.D., Noren, A., Kück, J., Pierdominici, S., Voigt, S., Abadi, M.S., Ulfers, A., Danour, S., Afrifa, K. & Kaboth-Bahr, S. (2024) An age-depth model for Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana) to reconstruct one million years of West African climate and environmental change. Quaternary Science Reviews 325, 108478. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108478

Mapping Ancient Africa: INQUA Rome session

July 3, 2023
WDG

The Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) project has a double session of talks and a poster session at the INQUA congress in Rome 2023. Our session will be on Wednesday 19 July.

If you are at the INQUA Rome congress please come along to our talks and posters in Session 64: Mapping Ancient Africa: Climate, Vegetation & Humans.

Part 1: 08:30-10:30

  • Giosan et al. When the desert was a lake: Providing context for Homo sapiens development in the northern Kalahari
  • Chase et al. Paleolakes and socioecological implications of glacial “greening” of the South African interior
  • Biddulph et al. Spatiotemporal variability in the initiation and development of peatlands across the central Congo Basin
  • Blinkhorn et al. Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa
  • Aureli et al. Homo sapiens behaviour and adaptation in East Africa. New evidence from an open-air site in a modern Ethiopian savannah environment: the GOT10 site
  • Dembele Climatic fluctuations during the last millenium and their impact on political history and human settlements in West Africa
  • Porchier et al. Annually resolved hydroclimate variability in the East African Rift Valley at a time critical for hominin dispersion
  • Effiom et al. Late Holocene palaeoecological studies at Lake St Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal

Part 2: 11:00-13:00

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A stronger role for long-term moisture change than for CO2 in determining tropical woody vegetation change

May 5, 2022
WDG

Gosling, W.D., Miller, C.S., Shanahan, T.M., Holden, P.B., Overpeck, J.T. & van Langevelde, F. (2022) A stronger role for long-term moisture change than for CO2 in determining tropical woody vegetation change. Science 376, 653-656. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg4618

To access this article FREE through the Science author referral service click here.

For more on the palaeoecological dataset underpinning this research check out the PhD thesis of Charlotte Miller by clicking here or here.

The modern pollen-vegetation relationships of a tropical forest-savannah mosaic landscape, Ghana, West Africa

August 22, 2017
WDG

Julier, A.C.M., Jardine, P.E., Adu-Bredu, S., Coe, A.L., Duah-Gyamfi, A., Fraser, W.T., Lomax, B.H., Malhi, Y., Moore, S., Owusu-Afriyie, K. & Gosling, W.D. (2017) The modern pollen-vegetation relationships of a tropical forest-savannah mosaic landscape, Ghana, West Africa. Palynology online. DOI: 10.1080/01916122.2017.1356392

Ghana Fieldwork 2014; Day 02

October 17, 2014
wesfraser

The second day of our fieldwork saw us; transfer from Accra to Fumesua where FORIG is located (approximately 20 km south of Kumasi); meet up with FORIGs deputy director Dr Stephen Adu-Bredu to discuss fieldwork and outreach plans; and settle in to FORIG for the next two weeks.

The next two days will involve building pollen traps ready for deployment next and finalising the detailed day-to-day plan of work.

Ghana Fieldwork 2014; Day 01

October 17, 2014
wesfraser

The latest round of fieldwork in Ghana is underway. Adele and myself are travelling out to collect pollen traps deployed last year as part of Adeles PhD research. We will be revisiting the sites in Ankasa, Bobiri and Kogyae that Adele and Phil visited last year. This time we are also accompanied by Lottie who will be delivering workshops on outreach activity engagement and the palaeoecology represented in the sediment record of Lake Bosumtwi.

Flying into land at Accra in the twilight we passed over a storm cell, with some fantastic convective clouds illuminated by flashes of lightning within. Once out of the airport, we were taken through the hustle and bustle of Accra streets, alive with evening activity. Finally reaching our destination for the night, the FORIG guesthouse. All three members of our party readily made for bed to get a good nights sleep before tomorrows journey to Kumasi.

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