The following is from the October 2, 2000 Washington Post, Science Section. The information presented in the Post as "new evidence" was made part of the ESSS curriculum at the end of last school year and is referred to in the video, Our Home: Earth From Space.

Reefs Plagued by African Dust

Providing new evidence that we live in a small world, the drought in Africa could be playing a role in the death of coral reefs in the Caribbean, according to new research.

Eugene A. Shinn of the U.S. Geological Survey Center for Coastal Geology in St. Petersburg, Fla., and colleagues analyzed dust that satellite data showed had arrived in the Virgin Islands from Africa. In the dust, the researchers found spores of a soil fungus called Aspergillus sydowii that could be harming the coral, the researchers said.

"Identification and culturing of A. sydowii from air samples taken from the atmosphere during dust outbreaks in the Virgin Islands shows that African dust is an efficient substrate for delivering Aspergillus spores," the researchers wrote in the Oct. 1 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

While warmer water due to the El Nino weather pattern also plays a role in the death of coral, drought in Africa has coincided with die-offs of coral. In addition, dust can also carry iron and other nutrients that trigger the growth of phytoplankton and algae that could also damage coral, the researchers said.

"This combination of atmospheric nutrient enrichment along with an intermittent supply of fungal spores and possibly bacterial cysts, especially when combined with warm El Nino conditions, suggest a strong potential for environmental perturbation."