European Diatom Database-African Dataset

The East African dataset and North African dataset were harmonized to construct a unified African data set. Transfer functions were developed from the subsequent training set for inferring past conductivity (r2= 0.87), pH (r2= 0.77), and ratios between alkali and alkaline earth metals (r2 = 0.81) and carbonate-bicarbonate and sulphate + chloride ions (r2 = 0,82) (Gasse et al., 1995) and the model has subsequently been applied to several diatom sequences to reconstruct lake chemistry (e.g. Fritz et al., 1999; Dagnachew et al., in press ; Chalie and Gasse, in press ; Gasse, 2001 ; Gasse, in press ; Verschuren et al., 2000 ).