The African Great Lakes

If you are from Canada or the United States, when you hear "Great Lakes,"  you probably think of these five bodies of water:

The Great Lakes of North America

North America is not the only continent to have Great Lakes; Africa has its own great lakes. Exactly which of the East African Lakes are considered Great Lakes is a bit subjective, but I've labeled the most commonly referred to ones on the zoomed in map below. The African Great Lakes, as well as the smaller lakes found in East Africa are part of the East African Rift System, which will I'll write about in later posts.

The African Great Lakes

The Great Lakes

Some facts about the African Great Lakes:

• Lake Victoria is the second largest continental lake in the world by surface area (after Lake Superior)
• Lake Tanganyika is the second deepest continental lake in the world (after Lake Baikal)
• Lake Tanganyika is the second largest continental lake by water volume in the world (after Lake Baikal)
• Lake Malawi has more species of fish than any other freshwater lake
• Lake Tanganyika is the longest lake in the world

All maps created using http://www.geomapapp.org/

The beginning

There was a moment, in Kenya, when I looked around at where I was and thought, "this is it. This is what the hard work of the last two years has been for."

I just spent five weeks in Kenya as part of the science crew for HSPDP - the Hominid Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project. Africa changed me, as it does for so many people, in ways that I probably won't discuss publicly. It also rejuvenated my passion for the research I am doing right now. I'm still organizing my thoughts and photos from the whole thing, but there will be some posts to come.

In the meantime, I've written a post about the one-day safari I went on in Nairobi National Park over at my travelblog.  Check it out here (safari blog) for an account of our adventures - and there were several - and photos of African wildlife.

My last sunset in Turkana