Why is the sea water salty?

Question

..Well, why is the sea water salty ?

:)

Answer 1

This is a very good question, because nobody knows why the ocean is so salty.  There are many "explanations" but nothing convincing.

If you cannot go to sleep wihtout an explanation check this one below:

Answer 2

beause there's salt in it... ? ^^

Answer 3

i guess that it is just another one of mother nature's miracles! ok salt is a great preservative. the earth has been around for 4.5 billion years. the water of the earth never changes. the oceasn have also been around for 4.5 billion years. the water didnt spoil. u opened an drank a little from a bottle of fresh water. close that bottle and open it after 2 months. can u drink that? same goes for the water in the sea. all u need to do is desalinate the water and u will get fresh water. the salt preserves the water and keeps it fresh.

hope this helps

Answer 4

the article pointed too by Pennywise is good - most of the psoters only mention materials that come from erosion washing into the sea, a prety much school-grade standard answer but modern goeolgists also see the role of underwater volcanoes - see "black smokers" as significant - You also need to consider the processes that  remove minerals from the ocean, a very significant one is the removal of calcium, and carbon (in the form of carbonate) by life in the oceans - if this did not happen the chemical balance of the oceans would be *very* different.

Answer 5

simply saying, main source of salts is dissolved salts of salty rocks in the rivers' water

you may say that the sea water has much salts than rivers water, the answer is that due to evaporation of sea water its concentration become higher than rivers

so concentration of salt of the sea water is a function of the amount of entering fresh water of rivers (fresh water means the water containing less salt) and the amount of evaporation of the water

Answer 6

All human waste products eventually end up in the seas. Animals obtain salt from saltlicks. Natural salt mines have been mined at an exponential rate in the past 2 centuries, and salt has been used as a food preservative since time immemorial, adding to the reserves in the oceans. Salt helps to keep the water in the seas, otherwise more of it would evaporate as the Sun heats up over the milleniums. Also, it's the Earth's "dynamo" which protects our water from being photo-dissociated by solar uv, stripping hydrogen from water molecules, while the solar wind blows it away. Earth's dynamo also protects us from cosmic rays--galactic, solar, extragalactic, ultra high energy, and anamolous rays--which would otherwise bombard us.

Much of the water in the oceans and seas was made by mammals (animals, furry creatures, pets), including humans. That's because water vapor and CO2 are the 2 primary byproducts of aerobic respiration, or oxygen intake:

Aerobic Respiration:

C6H12O6 + oxygen --> 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + energy

Combustion adds even more water to the atmosphere whenever fuels are burned, and whenever fires start--natural or man-made fires:

Combustion:

Butane C4H10 + 6.5 O2 --> 4 CO2 + 5 H2O

Now you know why we have such a problem with flooding. The flooding will continue unabated and worsen over time since the Earth can be likened to a fishbowl, it just fills up with water unless some of it is removed. Write to your space agency to ship potable bottled water to the moon and Mars. 160+ moons have been discovered so far in our very own solar system.

Answer 7

"Goatmilk" is correct ...

except for point 7; the rate of salination is too high to have been going-on that long. The oceans would be deader than the Dead Sea!

Answer 8

the multiple years of rain on the lands have dissolved  various "salts" in the soils and washed them down to the ocean where they stay.

Answer 9

Well on the shore You see the rocks or like the big hills they contain rocksalt and everytime the sea waves it eats the rock and salt is formed into the sea. :)

Answer 10

First you need to look at the water cycle,

(1) pure water evaporates from the sea and becomes a cloud,

(2) the cloud rains over land

(3) the water drains to rivers and streams, as they do this

(4) and because water is a natural solvent,

(5) the water collects minerals and natural salt from the land

(6) and these is deposited in the sea via streams, and rivers

(7) because this process was repeated every day for billions of years, there are a great concentration of dissolved natural salt in the sea.

Lastly look at a good science book. I hope that the above rough idea helps you why and how the sea become salty.

Answer 11

The main source of the salt is from rivers carrying weathered minerals (salts) from the rocks on the continents to the oceans.

EDIT

For Nigel:

My posting gives the main source; however, you are correct that there are other sources such as black smokers.  Other sources include:

-dissolved salts from rocks and sediments below its floor

-the solid and gaseous materials that escaped from the Earth's crust through volcanic vents or that originated in the atmosphere

Answer 12

http://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/salt...

there ya go! ;-)

Answer 13

The water in the oceans comes from fresh water from rains and glaciers which dissolves salts as it makes it's way to the ocean

Answer 14

Because it is full of salt.

Answer 15

Because it has salt in it?