A swirling mass of dust from the western Sahara blows into the Atlantic Ocean. Bhattacharya’s research on dust trapped in ancient corals suggests that long-running droughts send clouds of dust into the atmosphere. Credit: Jeff Schmaltz/NASA Visible Earth
In the laboratory, Bhattacharya uses analytical chemistry to probe residues that became buried by dust storms 400 to 500 years ago. These studies let her combine her passions for Earth’s history and current events.
Even in middle school, Bhattacharya, now 30, loved chemistry. But, encouraged by her father, she initially studied geology. “My dad was a famous geologist in India where I grew up and I was a big fan of National Geographic magazine,” she says. Her dad was fascinated by the history of Earth and suggested she might like it too.
After college, Bhattacharya says she “wanted to get into a career in which I could use science as a tool to study issues that are affecting people today.” So she began focusing on the planet’s changing climate.
She started by compiling a 300-year-long record of dust storms. Her data suggested that the amount of dust in today’s atmosphere is influenced by the amount of rain that fell tens — and possibly hundreds — of years ago.
Using advanced chemistry techniques, she searched for clues to the history of desert dust in the atmosphere. She found evidence by measuring the amount of dust caught in old corals living in ocean waters near the desert.