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Why is the Ocean Salty?0 COMPLETED

 

By Water Science School 0 May 23, 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Find out here how the water in the seas became salty.

 

 

 

 

• Water Science School HOME • Water Basics topics •

 

Why is the Ocean Salty?

 

You may know that the oceans By some estimates, if the salt in the ocean could be removed and spread evenly over the Earth's land surface it would form a layer more than 500 feet (166 meters) thick, about the height of a 40-story ofce building (Source: NOAA ) Here's how it works...

 

 

From precipitation to the land to the rivers to the sea

 

The rain This causes the rainwater to be slightly acidic The ions in the runof Others are not used up and are left for long periods of time where their concentrations increase over time.

 

By the way, the concentration of salt in seawater ( salinity And, just so you

 

Before you go out and try alchemy on seawater, though, just think about how big a cubic mile is (1 cubic mile contains 1,101,117,147,000 gallons!).

 

Salt comes up from below, too

Rivers and Hydrothermal vents are recently-discovered The reactions between seawater and oceanic basalt, the rock of ocean crust, are not one-way, however; some of the dissolved salts react with the rock and are removed from seawater.

 

This is similar to the previous process in that seawater is reacting with hot rock and dissolving some of the mineral constituents.

 

Sources:

 

Argonne National Laboratory and The University of Texas at Dallas .

 

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. Visit Media to see details.

 

These vents contribute dissolved minerals to the oceans, which is one reason the oceans are salty.

 

Credit: NOAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

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