Anyone in Greece, Crete the last couple of days?

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lukethedank13@reddit

Horrible for lungs good for soil quality. Or at least so i heard.

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Not sure about Greece, but my understanding is that all that lovely reddish-brown soil between the cracks in the limestone that make such good soil for growing Mediterranean plants in Dalmatia is just dust from the Sahara caught between the stones over the millennia. Extends quite far inland throughout the karst and verifies the wisdom of the ancient peoples building the stone walls and farming in the doline (sinkholes).

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lukethedank13@reddit

Whille sahara sand and volcano ash is beneficial most of the red soil is formed from iron and silicate impurities wethering out of limestone and dolomite

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Big-Vegetable4550@reddit

Sorry no - outdated info. Check out the latest research. You’ve got to wonder how iron in the limestone wouldn’t stain said limestone red.

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lukethedank13@reddit

I am a chemist with an interest in geology. I do know a bit about what i am talking about.

Iron oxides generally arent present in the reef and deep sea limestone at the concentrations that would alter its colour. They are present in hidrothermal veins and in sedimentary layers precipitated in water enviroments.

Silicates however can, in smal concentrations, be uniformly distributed in limestone but we also have lots of chert.

Lastly dolomite is often stained by iron and manganese and it forms iron rich soils as it weathers.

If you can provide me the latest research disproving my claims please drop me a link. Never a bad day to learn something.

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Big-Vegetable4550@reddit

There’s a few papers, mostly published since 2020. The Google AI summary does a decent job on a search of “Saharan dust deposits in Balkan Karst”, unfortunately I don’t know how to see the sources the AI used. But here’s a taste:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021JD035783

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390287590_Sahara_Desert_dust_as_soil_forming_factor_in_Central_Balkans

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32283354/

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2020.00189/full

It’s pretty fascinating stuff. Back when the theory of the Karst soil formation was based on weathering from limestone, I just couldn’t understand based on the actual appearance of the soils in the cracks in the limestone - too great of a color difference, and the texture of the soil didn’t seem like weathering deposits (too loose and sandy). Once I started seeing the papers on Saharan dust transport, it made a lot more sense.

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lukethedank13@reddit

Well ill be damned. "Aeolian sediments make up to 50% of terra rossa."

The question i have is how much of our paleosoils is sahara sand and how much of it is the ige age dust.

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Big-Vegetable4550@reddit

I was blown away too when I first saw it. But while I was living in Paris, woke up one morning to find the outdoor table covered with a fine red dust - turns out it from a dust storm carrying Saharan dust all the way up there. Given a few millennia of storms like that, I could see how a lot could build up in the dolines and cracks in karst limestone. And even how ancient farmers in the Balkans recognized the value of surrounding fields with stone walls. First it concentrates the soils left after the stones are removed from the field to build the walls, and then because the walls act as a wind stop to help airborne dust deposit in the fields.

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Emir_1923@reddit

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historydude1648@reddit

you can also do it with the CocaCola logo

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Emir_1923@reddit

Coca cola forces captured the city

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Emir_1923@reddit

Holy shit Pepsi has joined the war

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Emir_1923@reddit

The end... Coca cola forces retreated. Now the city belongs to Pepsi...

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Emir_1923@reddit

SIKE!!! Coca cola use his nuclear bomb aka coke zero. Nothing can beat coca cola zero!

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DatHistoryLad@reddit

They're filming the children of Dune there ngl

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kodial79@reddit

I live in Heraklion. It was as you can see. When I left work to go home, I could feel the sand in my eyes. It was so bad, my visibility was reduced to just a few hundred meters, beyond that just a red haze.

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Big_Confidence_951@reddit (OP)

that's so interesting. Maybe next time if it happens you can wear some sun glasses or something.

How is life in Heraklion? I imagine you see a lot of cool buildings and ruins and big olive trees, maybe wrong perception but do you live in such a painting?

gif

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Firm_Bodybuilder41@reddit

Not even close, I live in Heraklion, no cool buildings or cool ruins to see in the city. Generally a nice place to visit if you combine it with rest of Crete which is truly beautiful. Food tastes great, people are hospitable, the weather is perfect and the beaches are a peach.

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Big_Confidence_951@reddit (OP)

Maybe you haven't looked properly? I think it still has a lot of old infrastructure which is nice to experience. it was changed of course but thousands of years ago they walked these streets and the Earth in robes and tunic or chiton whatchamacallit

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vaniot2@reddit

It has happened before on previous years. Saharan dust is what they're saying.

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Agis-Spartan-King@reddit

You are lying. It has never been RED. We also had tropical storm, snow with 17 degrees Celsius and this red sandstorm in the same day the same time. This is one of the many signs of the Apocalypse.We never had the same situation again in the past. Never.

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Firm_Bodybuilder41@reddit

2018 was pretty darn close if it was not exactly the same

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vaniot2@reddit

...

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kodial79@reddit

But it's never been that bad...

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GerryCatLord@reddit

Saharan dust is a fertilizer so at least there's that

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vaniot2@reddit

Well yeah, there's more wind, so there's more dust xD

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Gullible-Voter@reddit

Looks like Mars

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Vesko85@reddit

Ah, Crete took off the other day together with Artemis 2 and a few hours later arrived on Mars. It will stay there for a few days and then head back to Earth. After all, the Martians also need to enjoy the delicious cuisine and the incredible beaches a bit.

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Over-Percentage-1929@reddit

For Crete it was just a 10 hour journey and back to earth by nightfall.

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Syrmin@reddit

wat

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Big_Confidence_951@reddit (OP)

haha

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