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BEX AKD GOLDBERG 



[chap. 5 



Dust from the Australian deserts has been observed to fall on New Zealand 

 after crossing the Tasman Sea (Marshall, 1929). The amounts which precipitated 

 in the dust storm of October, 1928, show a covariance with the intensity of the 

 rainfalls and snowfalls. The principal minerals composing this reddish to buff 

 colored dust were iron-oxide-coated quartz, clay and some mica flakes. 



I5°N 



S. Pole 



Fig. 1. Mean zonal wind averaged over all longitudes. Isotachs are in meters per second. 

 (After Mintz, 1954. By courtesy of the American Meteorological Society.) 



The deserts of Central Asia, North China, Mongolia and Manchuria and the 

 outwash flood-plains of the Central Asian mountains have provided enormous 

 quantities of dust which formed the loess deposits of this region (Willis et ah, 

 1906-07 ; Barbour, 1927). The Asian dust storms which reach Japan (Futi, 

 1939) carry sediment across the Japan Sea and out into the North Pacific. 

 Futi (1939) reports quartz and feldspars of a size of 2 to 50 microns as the 

 principal minerals identified in observed falls. 



The strong westerlies blowing across the Pacific basin have the large Asiatic 



