At http://phys.org/print267336872.html … is an interesting snippet of information from a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research (doi:10.1029/2012JF002366) and this is that red iron rich clayer soil is found on Bermuda – but the origin is a mystery. The soil overlies carbonate rocks and it is possible dissolution of the carbonate rocks helped produce the clay beds. However, Bermuda sits in a position that might have been affected by the Mississippi river system, bringing down soil from inner North America. It may also have been the remnants of dust from the Sahara – or a desert somewhere in Africa, blown on the wind across the Atlantic. It was decided, after modelling, the latter was the most likely origin – but an extraterrestrial source of the iron, we might imagine, was not part of the study, or the model. Have they really solved the mystery?
Red clay on Bermuda
29 September 2012Geology