The Amazon basin is one of the world’s wondrous ecosystems, supporting massive amounts of life, both in kind and quantity. You might have thought about poison frogs or monkeys, but you’ve probably never stopped to wonder, “Where are all the nutrients that power this biotic explosion coming from?”

The answer is actually astonishing and delightful in that one-planet-one-love kind of way. As laid out in a 2006 paper, nearly 50% of the nutrients that power the Amazon come from a valley in the Sahara called the Bodélé depression. The area is 0.5% the size of the Amazon basin it supplies.

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