Drilling Down to Open Up New Understanding of Earth’s Continents

Drilling takes place in 2014 at Lake Magadi, a playa lake in southern Kenya along the East African Rift, during the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project. The project collected cores to help scientists understand the environmental conditions in which humans evolved. Evaporating water leaves behind trona crystals (foreground) on the lake bed. Credit: Robin Renaut