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Expedition Objectives

 

Collaboration

 

The team will work in collaboration with the staff and students of the University of Dodoma (UDOM) throughout the course of the expedition. Both teams will be involved in the planning of the expedition as well as the execution of fieldwork and write up of results. Collaboration with UDOM will provide an excellent opportunity for both teams to exchange knowledge and experience each other’s culture. The teams will learn from each other about various fieldwork techniques and provide a chance for UDOM staff and student to exchange their local knowledge, benefitting the research greatly.

 

UDOM is one of two public universities in Tanzania. This relatively new university, established in 2009, currently has 20,000 students with the aim of enrolling 40,000 students by 2020. The Earth Science department at UDOM has established itself quickly since the founding of UDOM. There are three key economically-driven research areas within the department: volcanology (including research on Ol Doinyo Lengai); on and offshore oil & gas exploration; and precious metals exploration. UDOM are very happy to be collaborating with the University of Glasgow on this venture and the expedition has received support from the highest levels, namely UDOM Vice President, Ludo Kinabo, a University of Glasgow alumni.

 

The establishment of UDOM has allowed the city of Dodoma to flourish over the past 5 years with greatly improved infrastructure, business and a wider economic growth and is currently home to the seat of the Tanzanian government.

 

Research

 

Ol Doinyo Lengai provides a unique opportunity to understand volcanology and volcano-tectonics, which can help, determine the risks to the active volcanic region. The general focus of the research will be the volcanology of deposits, in both the lower part of the Ol Doinyo Lengai stratocone and wider area, and the effects of active faulting in the region and their relationship with the volcanic deposits. Detailed mapping and logging of volcanic rocks will allow us to reconstruct an eruption history of the region and answer questions such as: what are the nature and distribution of pyroclastic eruptions; what are the frequency and size of eruptions; and how do eruptions evolve chemically?

 

Distal pyroclastic deposits of Ol Doinyo Lengai and older volcanic rocks in the region display a complex relationship with the faults of the Gregory Rift Valley. Detailed mapping of NE-SW trending faults in the East and N-S trending faults in the North of the region will allow us to estimate tectonic strain in the area, the orientation of the stress field and reconstruct strainrates. These data will allow us to infer how tectonically active this part of the rift is, what are the actual kinematics in this triple junction and how the volcanic activity is influenced by tectonics?

 

The fieldwork completed by this expedition will contribute to current, on-going research into volcanic-tectonic interaction along the East-African Rift (changes in strain rates etc.) whilst also pioneering research into the physical volcanology of carbonatite volcanoes. It is hoped that our research will result in multiple publications, and provide a basis for further study in the region.

 

Another aspect of our research is to investigate the human impact of the volcano to the region. We will study the cultural significance of the volcano and how this has changed from the past through to the present, and also consider the impact of tourism which the volcano brings (e.g. the benefits of this tourism, how it is managed and conflicts that arise as a result).

 

The final aspect of our research is the re-take photography project. This has its audience and purpose focussed within the public engagement and science outreach aspect of the expedition. This project will involve the collection of photographs from previous expeditions to the area, particularly photos previous to the 2007/8 eruption, and then while in the field a new photograph will be taken from the same location for comparison. Find out more about our research here.

 

Public Engagement and Science Outreach

 

We all believe in the importance of communicating our research beyond the academic world and sharing our work with the wider public and engaging them in what we are doing, and why we are doing it. This expedition has excellent outreach potential and therefore, it forms a large focus of the expedition. Every member of the team is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Ambassador and we will be going into a number of local schools, both before and after our time in Tanzania, to run workshops with the students, teaching them about geology and fieldwork in the hopes of inspiring an interest in science. In addition to school visits, we will be communicating our work through a large social media presence. Through our website, Facebook page and Twitter anybody can follow us as we organise the expedition, complete the fieldwork in Tanzania, and then analyse, and write up our results. We will run a blog and post regular videos and pictures of our activities, including the Re-take Photography project.

 

The final aspect of our science outreach is the production of short educational videos that will be shared with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and Education Scotland. These will be aimed at a number of levels from P1 through to S6.

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