Scientists at NASA have discovered that airborne dust from the Sahara desert is carrying massive amounts of nutrients to the Amazon rainforest.
Yes, one of the driest, most desolate places on earth is actually “feeding” the world’s largest rainforest. #MindBlown
The findings, to be published in the Geophysical Research Letters, are the result of the first multiyear satellite-based estimate of phosphorus transport. That’s a mouthful.
The wind carries off huge quantities dust from the western edge of the Sahara – 182 million tons on average annually – with around 27 million tons of that Saharan dust settling in the Amazon basin. That’s a lot of dust – the equivalent of dropping more than 4 million African elephants into the rainforest.
But so far, this sounds like living next to a dirty neighbor whose trash is constantly blowing into your yard. Although most of that dust is just dust, some of it is actually incredibly valuable. A tiny portion of that dust is actually phosphorus, which is basically fertilizer. The phosphorus in the Sahara is left over from when the desert was lush and green during its last wet period.
The NASA scientists calculated that the tiny portion of phosphorus dust is around 22,000 tons a year on average – equivalent to what the Amazon loses to runoff from rain and flooding. So, the Sahara is in effect feeding the Amazon.
Watch the video from NASA for a full explanation: