Why Is the Ocean Salty?

Why is the Ocean Salty?
By W. Rex. Level: Platinum.

Experts say that our oceans contain chemicals and rain water. They also contain dissolved chemicals which scientists call "salts." But not all water tastes salty.

In the beginning, the seas must have been only slightly salty. But experts say ever since the first rains fell upon the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago and ran over the land breaking up rocks and transporting their minerals to the seas, the ocean has become saltier. Research says that rivers and streams flowing from the United States alone empty 225 million tons of dissolved solids and 513 million tons of sediment annually to the sea. This turns into salt.

The ocean compared to the water we use daily, contains unacceptable amounts of dissolved chemicals; it is too salty for humans to drink.

How salty is the ocean? Some scientists estimate that the oceans contain as much as 50 million billion tons of dissolved solids. These solids are how the ocean is salty.

They say that sea water is 220 times saltier than a fresh lake water.

Sea water has been defined as a weak solution of almost everything.

Ocean water is a solution of mineral salts and of decayed biologic matter that results from the circle of life in the seas. Some of the ocean's salts have been dissolved from rocks and sediments below its floor. Other sources of salts include the solid and gaseous materials that escaped from the Earth's crust through volcanic vents or that originated in the atmosphere.

The Mississippi, Amazon, and Yukon Rivers empty into the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean, all of which are salty. Why aren't the oceans as fresh as the river waters that empty into them? Experts say the saltiness of the ocean is the result of several natural influences and processes, the salt load of the streams entering the ocean is just one of these factors.

One would think that all the fresh water coming into the oceans by the fresh water rivers would eventually over years and years of moving that the oceans would be less salty. As long as rain continues and rocks continue to wear away due to rain water and empty into rivers the oceans will remain salty.

So when you are swimming in the ocean and it seems to be saltier than usual think of the above reasons and you will understand why.


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