Francis Harold Brown

Francis Harold Brown (October 24, 1943 – September 30, 2017) was an American geologist and geochemist who mapped the sedimentary sequence and geology of most of the Turkana Basin in Kenya, east Africa.

Brown introduced single-crystal argon-argon and potassium-argon dating into the Turkana Basin, resolving disputes over the age of Kenyanthropus platyops and other fossils.

In 1966 anthropologist Francis Clark Howell sent Brown to the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia, to study the chronology of sediments there containing early hominin remains.

[5] In the course of his work Brown came to learn numerous East African languages including Swahili, Kikuyu, Amharic, Turkana and Daasanach.

[7] Brown's efforts helped to date important hominin fossils including the Australopithecus "Lucy", Turkana Boy, and the specimen Kenyanthropus platyops.