Why is the water salty in the sea? This question at least once in a life (and, more precisely, in the childhood) each of us was asked.
"Water wears away a stone." This adage is very true. Worldwide there is no solvent stronger than water. It is able to wash out salts and acids, easily copes with stones and huge rocks.
Rain flows leach the hardest rocks, wash them into the water. Salt, accumulating in water, makes it bitter-salty.
But why are the rivers stale fresh?
Scientists have several reasons. Consider the basic theories, which today offer experts studying sea water.
Why is the water salty in the sea? Theory One.
All impurities entering the water sooner or laterfind themselves in the seas and oceans. Why is the water salty in the sea? Because the rivers are salty too. However, salt in them is 70% less than in the ocean. Devices register it, and the taste of river water seems fresh. Flowing water from the rivers falls into the ocean, salts accumulate there. The process takes more than two billion years. This time is more than enough to “salt out” a huge amount of water. The water gradually evaporates, rains fall, returns to the ocean. Salts and other elements remain unchanged: they do not evaporate, but only accumulate.
A good confirmation of this theory is the lake, which have no runoff: they are also salty.
For example, the water of the Dead Sea (in essence, this is a huge drainless lake) contains so much salt that it pushes any body to the surface.
Such a theory explaining why the water in the seasalty, has one major drawback. It does not take into account that in the composition of the river water there are mainly salts of carbonic acid, and in the sea - sodium chloride (ordinary salt).
Why is the water salty in the sea? Theory Two.
According to her, initially the water in the ocean was notsalty and sour. Why? Because at the time of the birth of the Earth, the atmosphere literally boiled. Volcanoes "threw" in her many chemical elements, acid rain poured. It all settled at the bottom of the newborn oceans, making it sour. Gradually, the rivers demolished into the ocean eroded rocks that reacted with acid. As a result, salt was released, which made the water salty. Carbonates were also distinguished, but they were very actively used and used by sea animals, which with their help build shells, skeletons, shells.
Long ago, the process stabilized, but the water in the seas remained salty. This is how it remains today.
Both theories take place, but none of them exactly explains why there is different water in the sea and in the rivers. In places, these hypotheses complement each other, and in some places refute.
Perhaps, a new theory will appear very soon, which will give an exhaustive answer to the question of all people on Earth.
