Lab's WoldeGabriel to speak about hominid species March 12

The development of hominid species in Africa is the subject of a Director’s Colloquium by the Laboratory’s Giday WoldeGabriel at 1:10 p.m., March 12 in the Physics Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3.

The program will air live on Labnet Channel 9 and can be accessed via the Internet using Real Media Player. It is open to all badge holders.

A geologist in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division (EES), WoldeGabriel will describe the role of plate tectonics and evidence from oceanic rift systems to highlight the proliferation of animal life, including hominids in the Great East African Rift System in the geologic past. He will summarize recent hominid fossil discoveries in East Africa and their ancient environments. He also will compare and contrast various kinds of hominid species.

“The Great East African Rift Valley is an active divergent boundary between two plates where new earth materials are continuously created,” WoldeGabriel said. “The fiery origin of this continental rift zone started some 25 million years ago in Ethiopia. The dynamic rift zone generated rift valleys and volcanic eruptions while creating ideal ecological niches for the proliferation of life.”

WoldeGabriel is the lead gelogist for the international scientific team that has discovered more than half of the known hominid species during the last 10 years. Three of the species were found only in the team’s study area, and two represent the oldest remains ever discovered, WoldeGabriel said.

WoldeGabriel is a native of Ethiopia. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Addis Ababa University in 1978 and 1980. He earned his doctoral degree in geology from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He came to the Lab in 1987 as a Director’s postdoctoral fellow. After working as a contract-employee and limited-term staff member, he became a regular full-time employee in 1992.

He has worked on several projects, including the Experimental Continental Scientific Drilling project in the Jemez Mountains, a high-level radioactive waste repository investigation at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and the Environmental Restoration project for Los Alamos.

For more information, contact Paul Weber in Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES-DO), or write to pweber@lanl.gov, by electronic mail.

To read more about WoldeGabriel’s work, read last summer’s Newsbulletin article.

--Michael Carlson

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