Why is sea water salty? Yes, it is salty because there is salt in the sea water. Even children know this. The problem is where that salt comes from. 99 out of 100 people don’t know that.
When I was young, I read that in an ethnic story written by U Hla, a mermaid fell into the sea, and the sea became salty. Another time, I put the salt mill that Indra gave me on the boat, and I fell asleep while grinding the salt. It filled with salt, and the boat capsized, and the salt mill fell into the sea.
How the salt came to the sea that we will talk about now is a story told by scientists. It’s not just because the scientists say it without any evidence. I will say it only because there is specific and valid evidence.
According to the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, salt enters the ocean from two sources.
The first one comes from the water that flows from the land, and the other one comes from the natural holes on the ocean floor.
The salt in the rocks on the Earth’s surface is the main source of salt that flows into the ocean. The rain that falls on the ground is slightly acidic. This acid gradually eats away the minerals in the rocks. This means that the minerals in the rocks dissolve in the rainwater as “salt” and enter the rivers and streams with the water.
The final destination of streams and rivers is the seas and oceans. So the dissolved minerals (salt) that come with rivers and streams finally end up in the oceans. Some of these incoming salts are used by aquatic animals and aquatic plants. But most of it remains in the sea. Gradually, over many millions of years, more and more salt came from the sea, and the sea water became salty.
In addition to the salt that comes from the land into the ocean, it can also come in other ways. It comes from natural holes on the ocean floor. There are cracks in the ocean floor. When the sea water enters the cracks, it meets the hot lava from the bottom and chemically reacts. Oxygen in water, Magnesia, and sulfur (sulfur) react with this lava and iron, which is dissolved in the lava. Zinc and copper are dissolved in seawater.
The hot water that dissolves these minerals comes back out of the hot springs on the sea floor. Along with the tide, minerals dissolve as salt.
There is still a lot of salt from underwater volcanic eruptions.
In addition, rainwater enters the salt pits and dissolves the salt in the sea. These salt pits are large salt pits that are formed by natural sedimentation under the ground or under the seabed. On land, household salt is produced from these salt mines. (The states of Utah in the American Union and Kashmir in India are areas with a large number of salt mines.)
The most common dissolved elements in sea water are sodium and chloride. The sodium chloride produced by combining these two is household salt. This sodium chloride household salt makes up 85% of the total dissolved solids in the ocean. Magnesium and sulfate are about 10%. The rest of the dissolved minerals are only found in small amounts.