Archeologists in the United Kingdom have invited members of the public to participate in searching for buried fossil specimens in the Kenyan desert through a citizen science initiative online.
The project, known as Fossilfinder, will have volunteers look for evidence of fossils by sifting through one million images taken from the Turkana Basin, an arid area considered to be filled with remnants of early humans.
The photographs were captured by scientists through the use of an advanced aerial camera system that was mounted on drones, kits and other devices.
The website for the archeological images is set to be launched on Tuesday during the British Science Festival in Bradford, Yorkshire.
Dr. Andrew Wilson, a researcher at the University of Bradford and one of the leaders of the citizen science initiative, said the project allows individuals to take part in an extensive hunt for new fossil specimens at Lake Turkana.
He said that the amount of archeological material simply could not be searched by a single person, and it could not be examined effectively by a computerized program alone.
The Turkana Basin is located between southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, surrounding Lake Turkana. The area is well-known for its rich deposits of fossils.
The section of the Turkana Basin featured in the project is believed to contain many fossil specimens from 1.4 to 1.8 million years old. This period is known for the appearance of the first three Homo genus species and other important developments such as the emergence and spread of a tool typically used by early humans.
Dr. Randolph Donahue, a colleague of Wilson's from Bradford said that there are key questions that need to be answered, including the specific relationship between the different species they have observed and which one of them is the ancestor of modern man.
The region of the Turkana Basin is also known for erosion which helps reveal new fossils each year whenever heavy rains occur.
The research team from the United Kingdom worked with members of the Turkana Basin Institute in building up the image bank in order to increase the scale and speed of scientific research in the area.
