Bernie Owen
Department of Geography
Hong Kong Baptist University

Bernie Owen is an Associate Professor in the Geography Department of Hong Kong Baptist University. He got his undergraduate degree at Sheffield University and his Ph.D at London University, having focused on the Kenya Rift Valley. He's worked in British Columbia, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Malawi, Kenya, New Zealand and Iceland. His main interests are in marine and lacustrine sedimenation and weathering, hot springs, and he likes playing around with diatoms. He first worked in the area of Olorgesailie 25 years ago, and he styles himself a fossil and has to stop people from collecting him. As you can see in our photographs of the site, Olorgesailie has a lot of white-colored sediment. This type of sediment is called diatomite - it's made up of lots of microscopic silica skeletons of algae known as diatoms, which live in freshwater lakes and marine environments. Bernie studies the species of diatoms from the ancient lake beds at Olorgesailie. These species are still known in African lakes, and because the different kinds thrive under different conditions, his identifications help tell us about the size and chemistry of the ancient lake. His collection of several billion diatoms this season will help to continue our research on environmental change in the Olorgesailie basin when the lake existed here.

In his spare time, Bernie enjoys hiking, writing books on hiking, scuba diving, illustrating with pencil or pen and ink, and squash, until mulitple injuries curtailed his playing.

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