Palaeoenvironmental Problems in the East African Mountains

Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction on Mount Kenya is possible from detailed analyses of landform distribution, various palaeosol characteristics, and palynological data. Landform distributions provide evidence for high magnitude environmental changes (especially glacial to interglaciation conditions), and quite often they provide the setting for other detailed palaeosol and pollen investigations. Palaeosols, from the upper Afroalpine (~ 4000 m) to the Bambool Forest (2 900 m), often exist as compound soils, ‘staked’ in order of development, following episodic emplacement of deposits by various geologic processes including volcanic activity, glaciation, airfall influx, slope wash, colluviation and other mass wasting processes. Many palaeosols contain important physical, chemical, microfloral, and pollen data that often provide the only evidence for palaeoenvironmental conditions during the time of their formation. Investigations over the last decade on Mount Kenya have answered some palaeoenvironmental questions that, in turn, have led to the definition of new problems.