Every summer, weather forecasters blast news about African dust plumes crossing the southern United States. And to most people, it’s just dust, but to researchers at Texas A&M University, it’s much more.

Researchers have developed a new method called isotope-resolved chemical mass balance to identify dust participles using isotopic measurements. Their new research builds off previous studies where they identified and quantified the dust by determining the elemental composition.

The study was recently published in Environmental Science & Technology.