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Introduction Lake Malawi, located in the southern part of the East African Rift Valley, is one of the world’s largest, deepest (700 m) and oldest (>7 Ma) lakes and is renowned for its biodiversity, especially its unique ecosystem including hundreds of species of fi sh and invertebrates found nowhere else on Earth. Geologists and paleolimnologists have sought for several decades to establish a high-resolution East African geologic and climatic history through scientific drilling of the East African Rift Valley lakes. The Lake Malawi Scientific Drilling Project reached this goal by acquiring more than 623 m of core at two sites—one highresolution site and one deep site extending back to 1.5 Ma. A total of seven holes, including one hole in 600 m water depth that reached a subbottom depth of 380 m, were cored with an average recovery of 92%. The high-resolution site was triplecoredand extends back ~80 ky. The deep site was double cored in the upper part that covers the past ~200 ky and then single-cored to its target depth of 380 m (Figs. 1 and 2).