Many, many tons of glacial rock flour are created every year. And surprisingly, the rock flour is good for the environment.
Crumbly rock, called glacial rock flour, is one of the byproducts of climate change. The silt left behind is from receding glaciers in Greenland.
Those glaciers are shrinking from warmer temperatures as a result of human-caused climate change.
Many, many tons of glacial rock flour are created every year. And surprisingly, the rock flour is good for the environment.
It's nutrient-rich and can be added to farmland as fertilizer because its particles are small enough to keep plants from choking.
In addition, scientists say when the rock flour dissolves in rainwater, it undergoes a chemical reaction that allows it to lock in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
And CO2 is one of the main greenhouse gas culprits responsible for climate change.
The rock flour helped boost barley crop yields by 30 percent in Denmark, which is great considering that barley makes beer.
"It's a more, you can say, more clean product compared to a very processed inorganic phosphor fertilization strategy," Pai Rosager Pedas, a senior scientist from Carlsberg, states.
"Where this could be more directly from nature, sort of say, where you need less processing and thereby less impact on the nature."
That sounds like a win-win for a planet that could use a couple of victories.
