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1 .This is Scientific American 60-Second Earth. I'm David Biello. Your minute begins now.
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2 .Imagine paradise.
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3 .Now imagine the Bahamas.
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4 .Hard to tell the difference.
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5 .The island nation boasts brilliant white sands, clear waters and vibrant coral reefs.
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6 .The waters of the Bahamas are so clear because they're low in nutrients.
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7 .They're therefore relatively free of the microscopic life that turns richer waters murky,
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8 .and is normally associated with the deposition of calcium carbonate.
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9 .So how did those reefs come to be？
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10 .A group of scientists argue that dust from across the Atlantic in Africa may have initiated the process.
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11 .Dust blows off the Sahara today, reaching all the way to the Americas.
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12 .Fertilized by the dust, cyanobacteria can then grow and pull carbon dioxide out of the water.
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13 .That activity in turn causes calcium carbonate to precipitate, an event known as a whiting.
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14 .And the cyanobacteria also fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, helping other microorganisms to thrive.
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15 .This may have been going on for a very long time.
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16 .Enough of such cyanobacterial work over enough time and eventually you get the Bahamas, built out of calcium carbonate.
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17 .At least that's what's suggested by trace elements in Bahama sediments.
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18 .The hypothesis is in the journal Geology.
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19 .Fertilizing similarly nutrient poor waters might help reduce rising levels of carbon dioxide that are causing uncomfortable global warming.
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20 .And maybe we'd get some pretty nice islands out of the deal eventually.
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21 .For Scientific American 60-Second Earth. I'm David Biello.
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