Wind plucks hundreds of millions of tons of dust from parched landscapes in northern Africa each year, propelling vast plumes of the tiny mineral particles over the Atlantic Ocean.
Wind plucks hundreds of millions of tons of dust from parched landscapes in northern Africa each year, propelling vast plumes of the tiny mineral particles over the Atlantic Ocean. By one estimate, the region contributes about half of the dust in the atmosphere—more than any other area in the world.
The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite glimpsed this process when the sensor captured this image of dust streaming off the coast of Mauritania on February 25, 2025.
Although much larger and denser plumes occur in this area, the dust in this image stands out due to its distinctive coloration. Sebkhet Te-n-Dghâmcha (also called Sebkha de Ndrhamcha), a seasonal lake and salt pan northeast of Nouakchott, appears to be the source of the lighter-colored dust. The salt pan contains large amounts of gypsum, a white mineral that forms when the lake’s water evaporates.
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.
