Huge Saharan dust cloud knocking on America’s door.
-Accuweather, June 25, 2020
Studies have found microbial life can hitch a ride on the (SAL) Saharan Air Layer and land on the shores of Florida after a turbulent journey across the sea.
-Washington Post
The Saharan dust cloud is made of much more than silicates and quartzites. Mostly those, but also motes of dried mud from when the desert had monsoon, micron-sized calcites formed from paleo-sea shells, and cellulose crystals from when the desert grew trees. And yes, also the gut biota- microbial life!- of the Sahara’s ten million camels, that which lives, dies, and returns from the dead when forage passes through their three stomachs on its fifty hour voyage from stem to stern.
Once KhairAllah at a farmer’s invitation steered our dabouka to graze in the fresh stubble of his bean field. We regretted it later when they were couched and hobbled around our fire. Normally hard pellets passed as unformed pies. They stank and made a racket all night as they flopped to the ground. But they too by now are sere as sand, eroded to the micrometer, blown north by khamaseen winds, spun round and round by the simoom, uplifted to 20,000 feet by the haboob, and pushed west by the trades to rain down on Mar-a-Lago.
Trump, eat tarh. Barr, eat ba’ar. Jared, eat ja’r. (see Varisco, D., Zibl and Zara’a: Coming to Terms with Manure in Arab Agriculture, Table 9.1 Terms for animal dung in Classical Arabic)