Mineralogy and mixing state of North African mineral dust by on-line single-particle mass spectrometry

<jats:p>Abstract. The mineralogy and mixing state of dust particles originating from the African continent influences climate and marine ecosystems in the North Atlantic due to its effect on radiation, cloud properties and biogeochemical cycling. Single-particle mineralogy and mixing state is particularly important in many processes but is difficult to predict because of large temporal and spatial variability and the lack of in-situ measurements of dust properties during emission, transport and deposition. This lack of measurements is in part due to the remoteness of potential source areas (PSA) and transport pathways, but also because of the lack of an efficient method to report the mineralogy and mixing state of single particles with a time resolution comparable to atmospheric processes. In this work, the mineralogy and mixing state of the fine fraction (

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