Does anyone know why the ocean is salty and how it got that way?My husband said an old chinese man went fishing with a salt making machine and while he was fishing the machine fell into the water and just kept on making salt even to this day and that's how the ocean became salty.But somehow I just find that hard to believe.Do any of you out there have a better explanation for me?I'd really like to know.
2007-02-23 15:53:54 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Earth Sciences & Geology
Ocean water is salty because salt is too heavy to evaporate. Salt gets into the ocean through surface runoff into the ocean. This is when water runs over the ground and into a water source. Since the water runs over rocks and dirt, minerals get mixed in with the water, and end up in the ocean. These minerals are the salts in the ocean. The reason that water is fresh when it comes from a river, is because rivers are fast moving and have a low residency time (how long a certain water molecule stays in a certain body of water). They also have outlets, so the salt doesn't accumulate in the river. Oceans and seas have high residency times, and no outlets, so salt accumulates there. The fact that salt is too heavy to evaporate is the reason why water evaporated from the ocean and falling as rain somewhere else is not salty.
I hope this helps!
2007-02-24 03:54:24 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
How salty the ocean is, however, defies ordinary comprehension. Some scientists estimate that the oceans contain as much as 50 quadrillion tons (50 million billion tons) of dissolved solids.
If the salt in the sea could be removed and spread evenly over the Earth's land surface it would form a layer more than 500 feet thick, about the height of a 40-story office building. The saltiness of the ocean is more understandable when compared with the salt content of a fresh-water lake. For example, when 1 cubic foot of sea water evaporates it yields about 2.2 pounds of salt, but 1 cubic foot of fresh water from Lake Michigan contains only one one-hundredth (0.01) of a pound of salt, or about one sixth of an ounce. Thus, sea water is 220 times saltier than the fresh lake water. What arouses the scientist's curiosity is not so much why the ocean is salty, but why it isn't fresh like the rivers and streams that empty into it. Further, what is the origin of the sea and of its "salts"? And how does one explain ocean water's remarkably uniform chemical composition? To these and related questions, scientists seek answers with full awareness that little about the oceans is understood.
2007-02-24 00:05:58 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Rivers collect runoff materials, including the minerals that will form salt, and they run into the oceans. Way back in the beginning the oceans wouldn't have been salty, but they've been getting salty as a result of the water cycle and river drainage ever since.
2007-02-24 00:00:34 · answer #3 · answered by KevinStud99 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Salt is a natural element
2007-02-24 00:53:13 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
fish use salt on their food and dont clean up afterward
2007-02-23 23:57:47 · answer #5 · answered by marissa w 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I got an email that answered this question....apparently it's whale semen that causes the ocean to be salty.
2007-02-24 00:04:23 · answer #6 · answered by nerdy girl 4 · 0⤊ 3⤋
The minerals dissolved in it.
2007-02-24 00:01:33 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
your husband is right. Ain't it crazy? Dumd ***!
2007-02-23 23:57:55 · answer #8 · answered by Mr. Lemur 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋