The Environmental Setting

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the framework of the physical environment that is necessary for the study of East African glaciers. To this end, the gross physiographic structure, large-scale circulation and climate, altitudinal zonation of vegetation and subnival soil forms, and vegetation and lake history, are discussed in particular.

“ … the thing about the geology of Africa that strikes one as especially significant is, that throughout this vast area just opening up to science there is nothing new.”

Henry Drummond, Tropical Africa, 1890

“Et comme toutes ces montagnes … sont caractérisées par des flores très semblables entre elles, mais d’un type unique sur la planète … les problèmes les plus intéressants se présentent … sur … ces formes végétales si particulières.”

Lucien Hauman: in Grunne, Ruwenzori, 1937

“The epochs of probably both colder and moister climate … have … extended their effects to the areas between those mountains, and we fmd everywhere evidence of such epochs in the numerous … ancient lake basins now wholly or partly dried up.”

Erik Nilsson, Pluvial Lakes, 1931