

Fertilizing dust: from Sahara to Amazon forest - pif
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/1/1/014005/fulltext/

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pif
Short résumé from xkcd ([http://what-if.xkcd.com/10/](http://what-
if.xkcd.com/10/)):

In Chad, on the southern outskirts of the Sahara, there’s valley called the
Bodélé Depression. It was once a lakebed, and the dry dust in the valley floor
is full of nutrient-rich matter from the microorganisms that lived there.

From October to March, winds coming in from the east are pinched between two
mountain ranges. When the surface winds climb over 20 mph, they start picking
up dust from the valley. This dust is blown westward, all the way across
Africa, and out over the Atlantic.

That dirt—from one small valley in Chad—supplies over 50% of the nutrient-rich
dust that helps fertilize the Amazon rainforest.

At least, according to that one study. But if it's right, it wouldn’t be a
crazy anomaly. This kind of complexity is found everywhere. The basic building
blocks of our world are _crazy_.

