What really makes the sea or the ocean "SALTY"?

Question

Perhaps Sodium is one reason but do fishes & other sea creatures make the ocean tastes salty? My 9-yr-old kid wants a valid answer : )

Answer 1

Over 30 elements, ions and compounds can be found dissolved in seawater. Six of these (chlorides, sulfates, sodium, magnesium, calcium and potassium) comprise 99% of the total. The presence of these dissolved elements, ions and compounds makes the ocean "salty." Salinity refers to the amount of these dissolved elements, ions and compounds present in water.

In other words it is all the stuff mixed in there.

Answer 2

Scientific theories behind the origins of sea salt started with Sir Edmond Halley in 1715, who proposed that salt and other minerals were carried into the sea by rivers, having been leached out of the ground by rainfall runoff. Upon reaching the ocean, these salts would be retained and concentrated as the process of evaporation removed the water. Halley noted that of the small number of lakes in the world without ocean outlets (such as the Dead Sea and the Caspian Sea, see endorheic basin), most have high salt content. Halley termed this process "continental weathering". Halley's theory is partly correct. In addition, sodium was leached out of the ocean floor when the oceans first formed. The presence of the other dominant ion of salt, chloride, results from "outgassing" of chloride (as hydrochloric acid) with other gases from Earth's interior via volcanos and hydrothermal vents. The sodium and chloride ions subsequently became the most abundant constituents of sea salt. Ocean salinity has been stable for billions of years, most likely as a consequence of a chemical/tectonic system which removes as much salt as is deposited; for instance, sodium and chloride sinks include evaporite deposits, pore water burial, and reactions with seafloor basalts. Since the ocean's formation, sodium is no longer leached out of the ocean floor, but instead is captured in sedimentary layers covering the bed of the ocean. One theory is that plate tectonics result in salt being forced under the continental land masses, where it is again slowly leached to the surface.

Answer 3

100s of millions of years of erotion make the oceans and seas salty. As water falls to earth in the form of precipitation it is fresh water then as it makes its way down mountains rivers and streams it collects salt from the stream and river beds and carries it to the ocean. During evaporation it leaves the salt behind. This also occurred in making the great salt lake in Utah because that area is a natural basin where water has no path to the sea. Animals that live in the ocean did not make it salty they just adapted to living in it

Answer 4

The ocean is salty because as rain falls on the earth and water runs across it it leaches out minerals like salt which run down teh rivers and into the sea. When water evaporates from the sea the salt is left behind. When it rains again more leaching occurs, and so on.

Answer 5

the chemical composition of the water.

some has more salt because there are really pockets of salt under the sand

Answer 6

It is salt, good old sodium chloride.

Answer 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater#Geochemical_explanations

does anyone google or use wikipedia anymore?

Answer 8

my boyfriend & I were wondering that a few weeks ago....

Answer 9

google it