Sahara desert sandstorm sustains life in the Atlantic Ocean

Research by the University of Liverpool found that the Sahara desert sandstorm helps sustain life across a large area of ​​the North Atlantic.

Fieldwork in the Atlantic has helped scientists map the distribution of nutrients, including phosphorus and nitrogen-containing substances, and they also figured out how to resemble organisms like Plankton can sustain life in poor nutrient areas.

They found that plants are still able to grow in starving regions because they take advantage of mineral salts in the Sahara sandstorm. From there they use organic or recycled materials from dead or decaying plants when nutrients and essential components of DNA such as phosphorus are very low in seawater.

Professor George Wolff of the University of Liverpool's Department of Ocean and Earth Sciences explains: 'We found cyanobacteria - an ancient plankton - playing a very important role in understanding how What the ocean receives can support plant growth. Cyanobacteria need nitrogen, phosphorus and iron to grow. They take nitrogen from the atmosphere, but phosphorus is a rare reaction chemical in seawater but not in the Earth's atmosphere. Iron in the seawater accounts for only a small amount, even if it is one of the largest reserve elements on Earth. "

'The results show that the Sahara desert sand storm is primarily responsible for the significant difference in the amount of cyanobacteria between the North Atlantic Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean. Desert sand has made the North Atlantic more fertile, enabling plankton to use organic phosphorus, but organic phosphorus cannot reach the southern region. So because there is not enough iron, plankton in the South Atlantic cannot use organic materials to grow richly. '

Professor Ric Williams, co-author of the study, added: 'The Atlantic is often referred to as' ocean desert' due to the many nutrients needed for the development of medium plants. Rare just appears in the dark depths of the ocean. However, plants need light to absorb these important nutrients, so they cannot get nutrients from deep areas. Therefore, they need to seek nutrition from elsewhere. We have now been able to demonstrate how cyanobacteria take advantage of organic materials, so we can better understand how life in the Atlantic is maintained and why it is actually Atlantic. Ocean is not 'ocean desert'.

'Research results are important because the life cycle of plants is necessary to maintain the gas balance in our atmosphere. In the process of understanding how plants exist in the Atlantic, we have demonstrated that the Atlantic Ocean can draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthetic plants'.

The study is published in Nature GeoScience. The study also involved scientists at the National Oceanographic Center, Plymouth and Southampton Marine Research Laboratories. The study was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council.