2006/10/01 by Ilan Koren, Yoram J. Kaufman, Richard Washington +4 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Aeolian processes and effects #Atmospheric aerosols and clouds #Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols #Amazon rainforest #Mineral dust #Amazon basin #Environmental science #Structural basin #Productivity #Hydrology (agriculture) #Atmospheric sciences #Geography #Geology #Meteorology #Geomorphology #Aerosol #Ecology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/1/1/014005
openalex publication_date 2006/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
About 40 million tons of dust are transported annually from the Sahara to the Amazon basin. Saharan dust has been proposed to be the main mineral source that fertilizes the Amazon basin, generating a dependence of the health and productivity of the rain forest on dust supply from the Sahara. Here we show that about half of the annual dust supply to the Amazon basin is emitted from a single source: the Bodélé depression located northeast of Lake Chad, approximately 0.5% of the size of the Amazon or 0.2% of the Sahara. Placed in a narrow path between two mountain chains that direct and accelerate the surface winds over the depression, the Bodélé emits dust on 40% of the winter days, averaging more than 0.7 million tons of dust per day.