Africa is a unique continent in many respects. Major questions about the topography, the origin of humans and of life in general are still unanswered. This is an inspiration for setting up new major projects in which European geoscientists collaborate with their African colleagues.

The African plate is nearly stationary, and about to split up into two new plates. It has not had any major mountian building events for 600 million years while the state of stress across its upper continental crust is predominantly extensional. Why then is Africa on average higher than all of the other continents?

Africa is the cradle of life on Earth and indeed of humankind. Traces of Archean microbial life in pillow basalts from greenstone belts may clarify the conditions of early life on our planet. Geochemical studies identified details about metabolism of these ancient mcrobes revealing their relatively advanced evolutionary stage.

Recent discoveries of Late Miocen hominids in the Chad region have revolutionized current thinking about human origins. It appears that the earliest hominids inhabited wooded environments rather than open savannah. They were also not restricted to Southern or Eastern Africa but lived in a wider geographic region, including also Sahelian Africa: at least Central Africa (Chad) and probably Libya.

The goal of Union Symposium 2 Geosciences in Africa is to initiate new large interdisciplinary geoscience projects in Africa. The European Geosciences Union will work in close liaison with African nations and research councils towards realizing them. Similar meetings have already produced a series of EGU Humboldt Conferences, in Ecuador (2005), in Chile and China (both in 2007), as well as considerable collaboration between geoscientists from Europe and from these countries.

A few examples of papers read during this session illustrate the unique aspects of the African continent.

• John Ludden (INSU/SDU – CNRS, Paris, France) Geosciences in Africa This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Maarten de Wit (University of Cape Town, South Africa) The African Plate: tapping 4 billion years of geodynamics and Earth system evolution This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Frances Westall (Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire, Orléans, France) Early Life on Earth: 3.5-3.3 Ga microbial remains from South Africa This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Michel Brunet (Université de Poitiers, France) In Chad, Central Africa: on the track of a new paradigm for the cradle of mankind.

Session: US2 Geosciences in Africa | >>programme