Tons of Sahara Desert dust crosses the Atlantic to fertilize the Amazon rainforest

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New data from a NASA satellite reveals just how much the world's largest rainforest relies on the world's largest desert.

Every year, nearly 28 million tons of dust is swept from the Sahara Desert across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in South America, where it helps fertilize the Amazon rainforest, a NASA study found.

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While scientists have known about the trans-Atlantic phenomenon for years, the researchers were able to estimate for the first time the amount of dust that makes the 3,000-mile journey. Using data from NASA's CALIPSO satellite, researchers were able to track these massive plumes of dust in three dimensions. Read more...

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