A thick plume of dust blew off the coast of Mauritania in western Africa on October 2, 2007. In this image, the dust varies in color from nearly white to medium tan. The dust plume is easier to see over the dark background of the ocean, but the plume stretches across the land surface to the east, as well.
While dust routinely blows across the Atlantic Ocean, scientists rarely see plumes as large and dense with particles as the one that darkened Caribbean skies in June 2020.