GMAO Africa Dust AQ

The Sahara Desert covers 3,600,000 square miles (9,200,000 square kilometers) of arid land, stretching across the northern half of Africa. The desert is just slightly smaller than the continental United States. Upwards of 60 million tons of its nutrient-laden sand and soil are lifted into the atmosphere each year, creating a massive layer of hot, dusty air that travels across the Atlantic Ocean

On its journey across the Atlantic, Saharan dust sprinkles into the ocean, delivering life-sustaining nutrients to the marine algae that teem near the ocean's surface. Minerals like iron and phosphorus in the dust act as a fertilizer for vegetation as far away as the Amazon rainforest, Earth’s largest and most biodiverse tropical forest, where rains otherwise wash many of these valuable nutrients into the Amazon river basin.