Why is the ocean salty??

Question

i have always wondered this...my best friend tells me a gross way it is salty...does anyone know???

Answer 1

There are three main reasons why the sea is salty.

1.) Minerals are dissolved by water including trace amounts of salt. We do not taste the salt because is is in such small quantities. These minerals and salt are carried to the sea where the water evaporates and leaves the salt and minerals behind. The Great Salt Lake is so salty for the same reason. Water flows in but there is no outflow to carry the salt in the water out and so by evaporation the salt content increases.

2.) Hydrothermal Vents - water seeps through the crust, is heated up, and returned to the oceans, leaching salt and minerals from the materials in the crust.

3.) Underwater Volcanoes - similar to the previous as water is reacting with hot rocks and releasing some of the minerals.

The salinity of the oceans has not changed in millions of years though because of the depositing of minerals at the bottom of the oceans as fast as they are washing in by the above causes. The salt content has reached steady state.

Answer 2

because basically 3 things diffusion,precipitation, and salt rocks. Salt rocks break up easily forming a "salt" that slowly mixes in with the sand on the bottom of the ocean floor and the water itself. Precipitation can bring down not "salt" but chemicals that can produce a sort of salt from polution.

Answer 3

there are natural minerals and salts in rocks and soil they have just built up in the ocean because the ocean has pounded away at these rocks/minerals

Answer 4

They say its from mineral. But another thought, think of how many fish are in there...and what they do.

Answer 5

because that's the way it is...
the salt kills bacteria