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The Sahara Desert Today Vs 8,000 Years Ago
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
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Mildly Interesting
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How was the Amazon? From my understanding it gets a substantial amount of benefit from the sands of the Sahara currently.
Wait what?
Did you confuse rivers (Amazon vs Nile) or do the sands of Sahara literally affect ecosystems on another continent?
Dust from the Sahara blows across over to the Amazon, enough of the stuff makes it across to be a factor when it comes to nutrient supply for the rainforest.
Damn, that's a long way to move some dust, I need that vacuum cleaner in my life.
Fun fact: Saharan dust is also responsible for the fantastic, vivid sunsets that Florida and the Caribbean get.
The second one. The sands of the Sahara are vital to the Amazon rainforest. They blow all the way to the Amazon and deposit phosphorus which would totally get washed away without that deposit. The surface of the earth is hyper connected. You only experience yourself as a separate being from the rest of nature just because of the limited awareness we have, not because we are actually independent.
Pretty cool.
To be fair, I've never seen myself as separate from nature, just separate from nature on another literal continent, it boggles the mind that sand can reliably and consistently travel that far.
The atmosphere is crazy, don't even get started on the water.
Apart from what others have commented on, some of the sand gets deposited in the ocean when it blows across the Atlantic. That sand is eaten by sea life and goes back into that ecosystem. The world is amazing.
Overall I think making the Sahara more green would be a net positive, but I'm sure there are unforeseen negative consequences for parts of the world.