Why is the sea water salty?

Question

Why is it salty?
At what rate is getting saltier (if applies)?
How salty was 200 million years ago when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth?
And Do you think that salinity in the ocean water (or lack of) may have contributed to animal life flourishing out of the water?
Does salinity in the oceans water contributing to what many people consider global warming?

These are in fact a lot of thought provoking questions in one. I appreciate your serious answer with references if possible and thank you very much in advance.

Tetraedronico.

Answer 1

All water sources run across the ground and rocks, and then drain into the ocean. With it they carry a lot of minerals and mineral salts. Some of the minerals can be dissolved by the water (the ocean waves help). The heavy minerals sink to the bottom, and the salt remains, it dissolves into the water. There are so many rivers, and rain runoff that I don’t think it is possible to measure how much salt flows into the oceans.

Salt is so prevalent in life, on the earth, and it the oceans so it is hard to find specific data on the web about it.

A younger earth had less salt. In the time of the Dinosaurs many areas were still fresh water, or had a low salt content. As time passes the oceans will get more and more salty. This will take thousands of years before we notice it (The oceans are really big).

Salt and water are major components of most animals. Without salt you will die, luckily you don't need a lot of salt to survive. We evolved from sea creatures so when they first developed they did so in a salty ocean. It was hard to not include salt in their development.

Salt also makes a great preservative, and was one of the first ones used.

According to Metro Active: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/09.28.05/dining-0539.html
"Sea salt tastes, not surprisingly, like the sea. It's also not as zesty as other salts because it has a higher moisture content. And for every sea, there is a sea salt. Fleur de Sel is a rare type of sea salt that forms on the surface of the sea during warm summer months. Its delicate crystals must be harvested by hand. "
They have a lot more data on salt.

According to Power Oganics: http://www.powerorganics.com/about_mks.htm
Salt has many health benefits , of course they are trying to sell you their salt.
"According to Peter Ferreira's lecture on September 8, 2001 "Water and Salt", Crystal Salt has many benefits. He performed a study over a two year period on 400 people using Crystal Salt and his finding were that whole Crystal Salt:
·Eliminates calcium deposits.
·Increases usable oxygen in blood.
·Un-clumps red blood cells.
·Detoxifies blood.
·Balances blood pressure.
·Contains the full spectrum of elements that resonates with our bones and enzyme and builds bone marrow.
·Neutralizes radiation. (which is why nuclear waste is put into salt mines)
·Makes capillaries more elastic and increases blood flow.
·Adds extra electrons to the body, which are free radical scavengers. Electrons attach to free radicals and eliminate them. Otherwise the free radicals would contribute to hardening of the arteries and capillaries.
·Balances energy field.
·Offers entire spectrum of electrolytes that the body needs.
·Helps neutralize uric acid and isolated sodium chloride.
·Brine water made from whole Crystal Salt has been shown to increase elimination of heavy metals through the stools.
·Reduces cravings for sweets. "

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:R2z89clQnfIJ:www.saltsense.co.uk/downloads/position_paper_eusalt4.pdf+Salt:life&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=43
Also explains why we need salt.

Salt increases the vaporization point of water and water drives the weather system. As the earth gets hotter more water will vaporize and fall as rain. Because of this more salt will be left in the ocean, and more salt will flow into the ocean from land. How much salt, and how this will affect the earth is hard to estimate.

Answer 2

Salt is the compound sodium chloride (NaCl). In the ocean however, the two elements are not combined but are separated from each other by the water molecules. The sodium is dissolved in the water as a positively charged atom, the chlorine as a negatively charged atom (these are called ions). Take away the water in between them and they attract and "stick" together as salt.

But these ions did not get into the ocean as salt however. The chlorine comes from volcanos (most active volcanos are underwater) and the sodium from the weathering and erosion of minerals that contain sodium.

The first oceans (3 billion years before the dinosaurs) were not salty, but as weathering and volcanos added sodium and chlorine, and evaporation cycled out the water, the salintiy increased. This saltiness has been the same for a long time however, because there are several natural processes that remove salt at about the same rate new salt is added.

I'm afraid I don't know right now the effects of salinity on promoting the use of the land by organisms, but I intend to look into it.

I doubt salinity affects global warming, but the global increase in air and ocean temperatures may change evaporation and precipitation, and that can change salinity. One dangerous effect of global warming melting the Greenland glaciers faster than at any time in past half billion years or so (even faster than at the end of the ice ages) could be a drop in the salinity in the North Atlantic that prevents that water from sinking. This could divert the Gulf Stream farther away from England and northern Europe resulting in a rapid cooling of their climate. The economic consequences could mess up the whole worlds economy.