Activities

Activities at AEON are designed to explore, discover and meet new challenges across Africa. Projects are embedded in Earth Systems Science research by design. Integrated into this are socio-economic issues enabling AEON to develop Earth Stewardship Science and to form the basis for a "learner's manual on how to drive a crowded planet Earth to arrive alive at the end of this century"; a manual that AEON’s members will help design and implement to promote sustainable living in Africa.

AEON has a large number of interactive and collaborative projects that cover a wide range of topics and areas of interest, embedded within a number of research, exploration and development programmes. You will find a description of these programmes below. Please click on them to find out more and to view the projects as well as related project-documentation within each programme.

IPHAKADE

IPHAKADE - AEON's flagship program is a Pan African research program that "observes the present and considers the past to ponder the future", with a shared vision of "Sustainable Africa" to establish with a high degree of certainty how to best differentiate natural from anthropogenic Earth system changes, and to use this knowledge wisely to assess and economically evaluate global changes induced by humans in Africa.

INKABA yeAFRICA

INKABA yeAFRICA is a collaborative bilateral research program between South Africa and Germany coordinated in Africa by AEON. Since 2004, three teams of Earth scientists from over 20 universities and research institutes are surveying a cone-shaped sector of the Earth from core to space, which encompasses South Africa and the Southern Oceans. Their task: to track Earth history 200 million years into the past to facilitate planning for the future. The aim of the initiative is to get a better understanding of Earth Systems and their interaction at different scales and rates.

!KHURE AFRICA

!KHURE AFRICA is a collaborative bilateral research program between South Africa and France, coordinated in Africa by AEON. Since 2006, 11 teams of geologists and biologists are linking dynamic co-evolution of Earth and Life to climate change. The programme investigates the co-development of the solid Earth materials & Life support systems over more than 3500 million years and covers a range of topics with applied "Society and Technology" themes tied to fundamental theoretical cores.

AFRICA ALIVE Corridors

AFRICA ALIVE Corridors is a Pan African project to document the unique geological, biological and cultural heritage of Africa. 21 transnational corridors of Africa weave a tapestry of the prodigiously diverse continent tracing geological time from the oldest crust to the youngest ice-sheets, and from the earliest microbial life to the current activities of our human family. The corridors will be mapped and documented as an 'autobiography' and offer a science based strategy to manage the sixth extinction and protect African heritage.

EarthWISE

EarthWISE is a major activity that links all of AEON. It explores and implements various pathways towards accelerated development and capacity building, public outreach and continuing professional development in matters of Earth Science and Society. The programs provide unique opportunities to encourage a new generation of Africans to explore their continent together, integrating frontier Earth System Science with quests for human needs.