Skip to main content Skip to secondary navigation

EAGLE (Ethiopia-Afar Geoscientific Lithospheric Experiment)

Main content start
detonation of explosive under water

Detonation of 1000 kg of explosive in Arenguade crater lake, one of two dozen seismic sources used for our controlled-source profiles in Ethiopia US-EAGLE (Ethiopia-Afar Geoscientific Lithospheric Experiment) is the US component of the international EAGLE program to investigate modification of lithospheric structure during continental breakup. With US collaborators from UTEP, Penn State and SWMSU we are working with UK scientists from Leicester, London, Leeds and Edinburgh in a comprehensive investigation of the deep structure of the Main Ethiopian Rift, at the point where the archetypal narrow continental rift - the East African Rift - is becoming dominated by magmatism as it progresses towards ocean rifting in the Afar Triangle and southern Red Sea. Katie Keranen (crustal group graduate) and Ewenet Gashawbeza (crustal group graduate) are working on this project. Previously two undergraduates, Andrea Les and Michele Cash, worked on this project and assisted with fieldwork in Ethiopia. For more on the science objectives of the project, click here. In June 2004 Prof. Klemperer co-organized the NSF-funded US-Africa Workshop on Anatomy of Continental Rifts: The evolution of the East African Rift System from nascent extension to continental breakup in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.