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April 11 OT: Petrichor



Petrichor From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Scent of rain" redirects here. For the play by Mark Dunn, see Scent of Rain. For other uses, see Scent of Rain (disambiguation)"Smell of rain" redirects here. For the Mortiis album, see The Smell of Rain.

Petrichor (/ˈpɛtrɨkɔər/) is the scent of rain on dry earth, or the scent of dust after rain. The word is constructed from Greek, petros, meaning stone + ichor, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. It is defined as "the distinctive scent which accompanies the first rain after a long warm dry spell".[1]

The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian researchers, Bear and Thomas, for an article in the journal Nature.[2][3] In the article, the authors describe how the smell derives from an oil exuded by certain plants during dry periods, whereupon it is absorbed by clay-based soils and rocks. During rain, the oil is released into the air along with another compound, geosmin, a metabolic by-product of certain Actinobacteria, which is emitted by wet soil, producing the distinctive scent; ozone may also be present if there is lightning.[4] In a follow-up paper, Bear and Thomas (1965) showed that the oil retards seed germination and early plant growth.[5] This would indicate that the plants exude the oil in order to safeguard the seeds from germination under duress.