"Smell of rain" redirects here. For the Mortiis

Mortiis

Mortiis is a band from Notodden, Norway fronted by Håvard Ellefsen, who is also known as the namesake of the band. The name is a misspelling of the word 'mortis', which is the pronunciation used by the band. However, Mortiis started as the solo project of Ellefsen as a means to convey a story...

 album, see The Smell of Rain

The Smell of Rain

The Smell of Rain is the name of an album released by solo artist Mortiis in 2001.The initial CD press run for Germany contained a bonus DVD including the 'Parasite God' video. The LP was a double gatefold with a 12" lyric insert. A remastered version was released later, as Mortiis requested. It...

.

Petrichor (icon) is the scent

Olfaction

Olfaction is the sense of smell. This sense is mediated by specialized sensory cells of the nasal cavity of vertebrates, and, by analogy, sensory cells of the antennae of invertebrates...

 of rain

Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...

 on dry earth. The word is constructed from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, petra, meaning stone + ichor

Ichor

In Greek mythology, Ichor is the ethereal golden fluid that is the blood of the gods and/or immortals.-In classical myth:Ichor originates in Greek mythology, where it is the ethereal fluid that is the Greek gods' blood, sometimes said to retain the qualities of the immortal's food and drink,...

, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.

The term was coined in 1964 by two Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n researchers, Bear and Thomas, for an article in the journal Nature

Nature (journal)

Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

. 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

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

-based soil

Soil

Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

s and rocks

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

. During rain, the oil is released into the air along with another compound, geosmin

Geosmin

Geosmin, which literally translates to "earth smell", is an organic compound with a distinct earthy flavour and aroma, and is responsible for the earthy taste of beets and a contributor to the strong scent that occurs in the air when rain falls after a dry spell of weather or when soil is...

, producing the distinctive scent. In a follow-up paper, Bear and Thomas (1965) showed that the oil retards seed germination and early plant growth.

In popular culture

• In the Discworld
  Discworld
  Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
  
   novel The Last Continent
  The Last Continent
  The Last Continent is the twenty-second Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. First published in 1998, it mocks the aspects of time traveling such as the grandfather paradox and the Ray Bradbury short story "A Sound of Thunder"...
  
  , there are frequent references to the Ecksian people (analogous to Australian Aborigines) being the only culture on the Disc to have a word meaning "that smell you get after rain".
• Neil Gaiman
  Neil Gaiman
  Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
  
   frequently refers to the scent of earth after rain in his novel American Gods
  American Gods
  American Gods is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on a mysterious and taciturn protagonist, Shadow. It is Gaiman's fourth prose novel, being preceded by Good Omens ,...
  
  .
• The word was featured in the Doctor Who
  Doctor Who
  Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
  
   episode "The Doctor's Wife"
  The Doctor's Wife (Doctor Who)
  "The Doctor's Wife" is the fourth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was broadcast on 14 May 2011 in the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States...
  
   (written by Neil Gaiman
  Neil Gaiman
  Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
  
  ), as part of a telepathic password to enter one of the TARDIS
  TARDIS
  The TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...
  
  ' old control rooms. To use it, Amy Pond had to imagine the smell of dust after rain. In "Closing Time"
  Closing Time (Doctor Who)
  "Closing Time" is the twelfth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC America and Space on 24 September 2011.-Plot summary:...
  
  (written by Gareth Roberts), Amy is seen on an advertisement for a perfume with the same name; it shows a picture of her face and features a bottle of perfume and the phrase "Petrichor - For the girl who's tired of waiting".
• In Barton Bishop's play Still the River Runs, brothers Jesse and Wyatt discuss the distinctive aroma that Wyatt identifies as petrichor.

External links

• Petrichor — at "A Word a Day"
• From the Oxford English Dictionary