3 ms·

So Sahara is good for something after all

• civilitty 3y ago
  It's a one of the biggest sources of trace micronutrients in the world. The 800 million metric tons of mineral dust a year that it produces feeds a ton of ecosystems: Amazon rainforest: phosphorus feeds plants Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico: iron feeds plankton Atlantic ocean: iron feeds plankton Southern Europe: phosphorus feeds plants Mediterranean: iron feeds plankton Sahel: phosphorus and iron feed plants Florida everglades: phosphorus feeds plants Andean cloud forest: phosphorus feeds plants
  • culi 3y ago
    Worth noting also that roughly half of oxygen in the atmosphere comes from the ocean, the large majority of which comes from plankton. The same type of plankton that bloom from iron. Scientists have been investigating whether manually spreading iron dust over the ocean can be an effective way to undo the damage that our rapidly rising ocean acidity is doing to our oxygen supply