Introduction: Paleontological and Geological Research in the Manonga Valley, Tanzania

Abstract

During the summer of 1990, a small international team, representing the first Wembere-Manonga Paleontological Expedition (WMPE), initiated a long-term field program of geological and paleontological research in the Manonga Valley of north-central Tanzania (Fig. 1). Although the occurrence of fossil sites in the Manonga Valley was first recognized in 1929 (Stockley, 1930; Grace and Stockley, 1931), there was little subsequent paleontological exploration, and the 1990 expedition represented the first concerted effort to document in detail the geology and paleontology of the region (Harrison, 1991a, b; Harrison et al., 1993; Harrison and Verniers, 1993). The expedition recovered vertebrate fossils from 10 different localities, and preliminary studies of the fauna confirmed initial observations based on the 1929 collections in the Natural History Museum in London, that the sediments probably ranged in age from late Miocene to early Pliocene (Hopwood, 1931; Harrison, 1991a, b; Harrison et al., 1993; Harrison and Verniers, 1993). The 1990 survey was sufficiently promising that full-scale expeditions were organized in 1992 and 1994. A total area of over 1000 km2 has now been explored, and more than 30 productive paleontological sites have been identified (Table I).