摘要：About 40 million tons of dust are transported annually from the Sahara to the Amazon
basin. Saharan dust has been proposed to be the main mineral source that fertilizes the
Amazon basin, generating a dependence of the health and productivity of the rain forest on
dust supply from the Sahara. Here we show that about half of the annual dust supply to
the Amazon basin is emitted from a single source: the Bodélé depression located
northeast of Lake Chad, approximately 0.5% of the size of the Amazon or 0.2% of
the Sahara. Placed in a narrow path between two mountain chains that direct
and accelerate the surface winds over the depression, the Bodélé emits dust on
40% of the winter days, averaging more than 0.7 million tons of dust per day.
