Why sea's water is forever salty?
- Thread starter Saint
- Start date
I don't know what Google will tell you but just off the top of my head:
Water is a good solvent. it dissolves a lot of stuff. When it evaporates, it's fresh, and when it's flying around in a cloud, it stays fresh because there isn't much up there to dissolve. But when it falls as rain and lies around on the ground for a while, it tends to dissolve stuff. The rivers and lakes are still fairly fresh because the water flows through them and the solutes don't have time to accumulate. But the oceans are the end if the trail. The water can evaporate from them, fly around in the atmosphere for a while and then bring more solutes down to the ocean. But once they get to the ocean, there's nowhere to go, so the oceans get saltier and saltier.
What did you find when you googled the abundances of Na and Cl?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
It means that Na+ and Cl- are the most abundant of the ions present in readily soluble form, in the minerals of the Earth's crust. There are plenty of other elements that are bound mostly in insoluble forms, most notably Si and O. So they don't get washed away into the sea nearly so much.
You've never once acknowledged an answer that was provided to you, or thanked somebody for helping you. That's why I've most given up telling you the answers. I'm waiting for you to show some initiative, or basic manners, at the very least.
If you don't know, you look it up and keep your mouth shut. You thereby avoid wasting people's times - and you learn something! Win-win!
If you try to look it up and you don't understand the answer, or you can't find the answer, then THAT would be a good time to ask here.