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The Geomorphology of the Lake Region (Main Ethiopian Rift): The Record of Paleohydrological and Paleoclimatic Events in an Active Volcano-Tectonic Setting

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Book cover Landscapes and Landforms of Ethiopia

Part of the book series: World Geomorphological Landscapes ((WGLC))

Abstract

This paper illustrates the main geomorphological features of the Lakes Region (Main Ethiopian Rift) which resulted from the interplay of Late Quaternary climatic and hydrological changes with volcanism and tectonics typical of an active continental rift. Studies carried out over several decades demonstrated that the evolution of Late Pleistocene–Holocene fluvio-lacustrine systems, recorded by a plethora of geomorphic and stratigraphic features, was forced by abrupt hydro-climatic events of regional to global extent which occurred at 104–102 years scales. Besides the widely acknowledged hydro-climatic forcing, the active rift setting concurred to regulate, through volcanism and fault activity, erosion/sedimentation rates, geometry of the lakes basin and of the hydrographic network, and water supply to the lakes. A volcano-tectonic imprint was left particularly during the transition from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene when dramatic hydrological modifications affected the region.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are indebted with Prof. Mario Sagri and Giovanni Ferrari for their effort and impulse in the field researches in Ethiopia and the constructive contribution in the discussion of the data, for understanding the geomorphological evolution of the Lakes Region during the Late Quaternary. The researches summarized in this paper involved between 1994 and 2005 also a large number of Italian undergraduate and graduate students and Ethiopian colleagues which benefitted from funds from the European Commission (EC-STD3 “Land resource inventory, environmental changes analysis, and their application to agriculture in the Lakes Region, Ethiopia”) and the Italian Ministry of University and Research (PRIN 1999 and 2003). Prof. Paolo Billi and Mario Sagri are thanked for their critical reading and review of an early version of this paper.

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  1. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Firenze, Florence, Italy

    M. Benvenuti & S. Carnicelli

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  1. M. Benvenuti
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Correspondence to M. Benvenuti .

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  1. Physics and Earth Sciences, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy

    Paolo Billi

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Benvenuti, M., Carnicelli, S. (2015). The Geomorphology of the Lake Region (Main Ethiopian Rift): The Record of Paleohydrological and Paleoclimatic Events in an Active Volcano-Tectonic Setting. In: Billi, P. (eds) Landscapes and Landforms of Ethiopia. World Geomorphological Landscapes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8026-1_17

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