Describing the Great Rift Valley

I visited the Omo River of southern Ethiopia in 2014. This is an amazing region for fossil hominin discoveries, with fossil material spanning from the Pliocene through the Late Pleistocene. The area is the northernmost part of the Turkana Basin, a key place in the African Rift system.

I took the opportunity to give a quick overview of the geology of the Rift and why it is such a good place for the preservation and discovery of fossil hominins.