Wednesday, October 07, 2009

In an extraordinary case of nature doing its thing, Australian dust storms spark an explosion of life.


You probably saw the stories of the massive, End-of-Days-esque dust storms in Australia two weeks ago, but this report from the Discovery Channel reveals that the storms were also tremendous givers of life:
"The red dust storm that dumped thousands of tons of soil across eastern Australia two weeks ago has caused an explosion in microscopic life in Sydney Harbor and beyond. [. . .] Jones said phytoplankton needs nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate to grow, nutrients that are scarce in what he calls Australia's "desert" ocean waters, but were abundant in the topsoil that blew across the country."
There's hope that the increase in microscopic life will lead to expanded fish stocks "to feed some of the world's poorest people."

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