LIVING AND TRAVELLING IN THE VENDÉE

What’s going on, Vendée? On the morning of March 15th, 2022, we awoke to cloudy skies exuding a hue of orange, as if we had suddenly landed in a bizarre Martian-colored landscape.  The haze in the air and the fine reddish dust coating everything here today is Saharan Dust.  It comes from the Sahara Desert, and consists of mineral dust produced by wind-driven erosion. The dust is actually vital for marine and land-based life as it is rich in micronutrient iron, which is important for marine bacteria and phytoplankton. In the Amazon Basin, most of the phosphorus comes from aeolian (wind) dust. According to NASA’s website, “Normally, hundreds of millions of tons of dust are picked up from the deserts of Africa and blown across the Atlantic Ocean each year.” These dust storms can fertilize soils in the Amazon, degrade air quality, impact hurricane development, and even shape Caribbean beaches. The Saharan …