SCIENCE ALERT - Dust swept from the Sahara desert provides life at the bottom of the marine food chain with a critical nutrient. Without the iron carried far and wide in this mineral cloud, oceanic phytoplankton would struggle to bloom.
According to a new study led by the University of California, Riverside, the more time the dust spends aloft in the atmosphere, and the further it travels, the more its iron is converted into a form that is easily accessed by the biosphere below.
"The transported iron seems to be stimulating biological processes much in the same way that iron fertilization can impact life in the oceans and on continents," says biogeochemist Timothy Lyons. "This study is a proof of concept confirming that iron-bound dust can have a major impact on life at vast distances from its source."