How 27 million tons of Saharan dust fertilizes the Amazon every year

Описание: Every year 27.7 million tons of dust travel from the Sahara desert across the Atlantic Ocean to the Amazon rainforest. This dust carries 22,000 tons of phosphorus, roughly replacing what the rainforest loses to heavy rainfall. Most of the dust originates from the Bodélé Depression in Chad, an ancient lakebed that was once part of the largest freshwater lake on Earth. NASA satellites tracked this massive atmospheric supply chain from 2007 to 2013, revealing how an ecosystem on one continent depends on geology thousands of miles away.