Lake Turkana

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Lake Turkana, formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya (although the far northern end of the lake crosses into Ethiopia), which covers a surface area of 6405 km² (2473 mi²), making it the world's largest permanent desert lake. It is also the world's largest alkaline lake. The area is hot and very dry. The rocks of the surrounding area are predominantly volcanic. On-shore and off-shore winds can be extremely strong as the lake warms and cools more slowly than the land. Three rivers (the Omo, Turkwel and Kerio) flow into the lake, but lacking outflow, the only water loss is by evaporation. Despite this, the water level of the lake fell by 10 meters between 1975 and 1993.

The lake was named Lake Rudolf (in honor of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria) by Count Samuel Teleki and Lieutenant Von Höhnel in 1888, and renamed Lake Turkana in 1975. The area has been preserved by its remoteness and still sees few Western visitors, being a three-day drive from Nairobi. Local people are predominantly of the Gabbra, Rendille and Turkana tribes. One of the villages adjacent to the lake is El Molo. The Turkana refer to the lake as anam Ka'alakol, meaning the sea of many fish. It is from the name Ka'alakol that Kalokol, a town on the western shore of Lake Turkana, east of Lodwar, derives its name.

Lake Turkana, sometimes referred to as the Jade Sea, contains Nile perch, a handful of obscure and pelagic cichlids of the genus Haplochromis and tilapia, and formerly contained Africa's largest population of Nile crocodiles: 14,000 breed on Central Island. The presence of water in such an arid area makes the region internationally important as a staging post for migrating birds. Lions, cheetah and giraffe as well as many other species of mammal live in the area. Elephants and rhinoceros are no longer seen, although Teleki reported seeing (and shot) many. Lake Turkana National Parks are now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Richard Leakey has led numerous anthropological digs in the area which have led to many important discoveries of hominin remains. The two-million-year-old Skull 1470 was found in 1972. It was originally thought to be Homo habilis, but some anthropologists have assigned it to a new species, Homo rudolfensis, named after the lake. In 1984, the Turkana Boy, a nearly complete skeleton of a Homo erectus boy was discovered by Kamoya Kimeu. More recently, Meave Leakey discovered a 3,500,000-year-old skull there, named Kenyanthropus platyops, which means "The Flat-Faced Man of Kenya".

The lake is featured in Fernando Meirelles's film The Constant Gardener, which is based on the book of the same name by John le Carré, although some of the footage was actually filmed at Lake Magadi.

The lake is also featured in the video game series Xenosaga as being the location of an excavation to discover the original Zohar and the Anima Relics.

See also

• Lake Naivasha
• Lake Nakuru
• Lake Baringo
• Lake Bogoria
• Rift Valley lakes
• Great Rift Valley

External links

• [Lake Turkana's entry on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites]
• [Map of the Lake Turkana basin at Water Resources eAtlas]
• [Satellite images showing Lake Turkana's falling water levels]
• [Sibiloi National Park, World Heritage Site]
• [Ongoing Palaeoanthropological research in the Turkana Basin]
• [World Lakes Database]

References

[World Lakes Database entry for Lake Turkana]

 

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