干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

This paper describes similarities and differences of Australian and African dust transport systems and dust properties. On both continents, wind erosion is a major geomorphic process. Dust is entrained from arid source regions with similar characteristics and transported large distances via major pathways. The Sahara is, however, a much more prolific source of dust than is Australia, which is reflected in the measured dust concentrations. African and Australian dusts have a similar clay mineralogy, with a somewhat higher smectite percentage in African dusts. While dust collected close to source shows similar particle-size distributions on both continents, African far-travelled dust is generally finer and particle-size decreases more rapidly with transport distance than Australian dust which is more aggregated and rarely shows a particle-size mode under 10 mu m.