NASA satellite reveals dramatic dust plumes over Mauritania

Dramatic images from NASA’s Aqua satellite captured dust plumes sweeping over Mauritania and the Atlantic Ocean on February 25, 2025, as detailed in a report from NASA’s Earth Observatory. The images show distinctive coloration, with orange dust in the north and whitish dust near Nouakchott, sourced from the Sebkhet Te-n-Dghâmcha salt pan.

Mauritania is part of northern Africa’s vast dust belt, which produces half of the world’s atmospheric dust. Saharan dust influences climate, ecosystems, and health, fertilizing Amazonian soils, fueling phytoplankton blooms, and affecting hurricane formation. 

According to Holger Baars from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, this dust plume was unusually low, reaching just 1.5 kilometers above sea level, which could significantly worsen air quality. The dust’s composition—gypsum, calcite, and kaolinite—contrasts with the iron-rich hematite and goethite that give other Saharan plumes a reddish hue. These airborne particles remain a key driver of global atmospheric dynamics.