English: Lake Turkana has been recognized as the most saline lake in East Africa as well as the largest desert lake in the world. Surrounded by an extremely arid landscaped, the long, thin lake stretches along Africa’s Rift Valley for more than 154 miles (249 km) from north to south and only measures 27 miles (44 km) wide. The depth of the jade-colored waters reach up to 98.4 miles (30 meters) across much of the ancient lake.

This region has become famous, in particular, for a rich and ancient fossil record. In 1902 the first paleontological expedition reached the southwest Turkana Basin, where a variety of vertebrate remains were found in sediments formed between 3.4 – 4.2 million years ago. The fossils included fish, turtles, rodents, horses, elephants and primates – including likely human ancestors. It wasn’t until the 1960’s, however that the rich fossils beds on the east side of the lake began to surface. The most notable finds include tools that were found in sediment dated at 3.3 million years old and a number of hominid and pre-hominid fossils which include: Paranthropus boisei, Homo habilis/rudolfensis, Australopithecus anamensis, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of Lake Turkana on May 29, 2018.