My interest in African lakes began in 1980 with my graduate studies at Duke University, where I was introduced to paleoecology by my advisor, Dan Livingstone.  Since the early 1960's, Livingstone and his former students (including Bob Kendall, Joe Richarson, Bob Hecky, and others) had done extensive work on long pollen and diatom records from  East Africa which showed, among other things, that tropical  climates were far less stable than had once been thought, and that tropical Africa had been drier during the last glacial rather than wetter, as many scientists had previously assumed on the basis of comparison with temperate zone sites.  I was invited to do my doctoral research on the diatom records of  cores collected from Lakes Victoria (Uganda) and Cheshi (Zambia) by my predecessors in order to complement earlier pollen work, and also participated in a 3 month seismic and coring study of Rift Valley Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi in 1981.  I've been working off and on with African lake cores ever since, but have more recently begun to dabble in more local projects as well, some of the results of which are reachable through the following two links.

Adirondack Research

Student Research

Below are thumbnail summaries of some past and ongoing projects on African lakes.

LAKE VICTORIA, UGANDA (climate change, solar variability, human impacts on the lake, fish evolution)

 

a. Damba Channel

 

1984 Stager, J.C. The diatom record of Lake Victoria (East Africa): the last 17,000 years.pp. 455-476, In: D.G. Mann, (ed.), Proc. Seventh Int. Symp. on Living and Fossil Diatoms, Phila. Koeltz, Koenigstein.

 

1997 Stager, J.C., and P.A. Mayewski. Abrupt early mid-Holocene climatic transition registered at the equator and the poles. Science 276:1834-1836.  PDF

 

1997 Stager, J.C., B. Cumming, and L.D. Meeker. An 11,400-year, high-resolution diatom record from Lake Victoria, East Africa. Quat. Res. 47: 81-89.

 

1998 Stager, J.C. Ancient analogues for recent environmental changes at Lake Victoria, East Africa. pp. 37-46 in Environmental change and response in East African Lakes. Kluwer.

 

1998 Beuning, K.R.M., K. Kelts, and J.C. Stager. Abrupt climatic changes associated with the arid Younger Dryas Interval in Africa. pp. 147-156 in Environmental change and response in East African Lakes. Kluwer.

 

2001 Stager, J.C. Climatic change and African rain forests in the 21^st century. Chapter 9 in W. Weber, L.J.T. White, A. Vedder, and L. Naughton-Treves (eds.) African Rain Forest Ecology and Conservation, Yale University Press.

 

2004  Mayewski, P.A., E. Rohling, J.C. Stager, and 13 others. Holocene climate variability. Quat. Res. 62: 243-255. PDF

 

b. Pilkington Bay

 

2003 Stager, J.C., B. Cumming, and L.D. Meeker. A 10,000 year high-resolution diatom record from Pilkington Bay, Lake Victoria, East Africa. Quat. Res. 59: 172-181. PDF

 

2005  Stager, J.C., D. Ryves, B.F. Cumming, L.D. Meeker, and J. Beer. Solar variability and the levels of Lake Victoria, East Africa, during the last millenium. Jour. Paleolimnol.  33: 243-251. PDF

 

 

c. Offshore sites

 

1986 Stager, J.C., P.R. Reinthal, and D.A. Livingstone. A 25,000 year history for Lake Victoria, East Africa, and some comments on its significance for the evolution of cichlid fishes. Freshwater Biology 16:15-19.

 

2000 Stager, J.C., and T. Johnson. A 12,400 year offshore diatom record from Lake Victoria, East Africa. Jour. Paleolimnol. 23: 373-383.

PDF

2002  Stager, J.C., Mayewski, P.A., and Meeker, L.D. Cooling cycles, Heinrich event 1, and the desiccation of Lake Victoria. Palaeogeo., Palaeoclim., Palaeoecol. 183: 169-178.  PDF

 

LAKE NABUGABO , UGANDA (climate change, fish evolution)

 

Stager, J.C., J. Westwood*, D. Grzesik*, and B.F. Cumming. A 5500 year environmental history of Lake Nabugabo, Uganda. Palaeo-3 218: 347-354. PDF

 

LAKE CHESHI , ZAMBIA (climate change)

 

1988 Stager, J.C. Environmental changes at Lake Cheshi, Zambia, since 40,000 years B.P. Quat. Res. 29:54-65.

 

 

LAKE BAMBILI, CAMEROON (climate change, origins of the Cameroon Grassfields)

 

1999 Stager, J.C., and R. Anfang*. Preliminary evidence of environmental changes at Lake Bambili (Cameroon, West Africa) since 24,000 BP. Jour. Paleolimnol. 22: 319-330. PDF

 

 

LAKE BAROMBI MBO, CAMEROON (climate change, rainforest history, fish evolution)

1991  Maley, J., ... J.C. Stager ... and A. Zogning (13 authors). West Cameroon quaternary lacustrine deposits: Preliminary results. Special Volume on African Continental Sediments, Vol. II. Jour. African Earth Sciences 12: 147-157.

 

LAKE NYOS , CAMEROON (investigation of 1986 gas disaster for National Geographic)

 

1987 Stager, J.C. Silent Death From Cameroon's Killer Lake. National Geographic 172:404-420.