Why is the ocean salty?
Oceans cover about 70 percent of the Earth's surface and about 97 percent of all water on and in the Earth is saline—there's a lot of salty water on our planet. 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 office building (NOAA). But, where did all this salt come from? Salt in the ocean comes from rocks on land. Here's how it works:
From precipitation to the land to the rivers to the sea....
The rain that falls on the land contains some dissolved carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. This causes the rainwater to be slightly acidic due to carbonic acid. The rain physically erodes the rock and the acids chemically break down the rocks and carries salts and minerals along in a dissolved state as ions. The ions in the runoff are carried to the streams and rivers and then to the ocean. Many of the dissolved ions are used by organisms in the ocean and are removed from the water. Others are not used up and are left for long periods of time where their concentrations increase over time.
The two ions that are present most often in seawater are chloride and sodium. These two make up over 90% of all dissolved ions in seawater. The concentration of salt in seawater (its salinity) is about 35 parts per thousand; in other words, about 3.5% of the weight of seawater comes from the dissolved salts. In a cubic mile of seawater, the weight of the salt (as sodium chloride) would be about 120 million tons. A cubic mile of seawater can also contain up to 25 pounds of gold and up to 45 pounds of silver! But before you go out and try alchemy on seawater, just think about how big a cubic mile is: 1 cubic mile contains 1,101,117,147,000 gallons of water!
Learn more: USGS Water Science School
Related Content
Where can I find bathymetric data?
What is marine geology?
Where can I get current sea-surface temperature data?
What is the difference between a tsunami and a tidal wave?
How is the salinity of Great Salt Lake measured?
Celebrate June as National Oceans Month
June marks National Oceans Month, a month dedicated to spreading awareness of Earth’s oceans and coastal ecosystems.
Study Aids Water Managers Battle Saltwater Intrusion
Scientists are using a cadre of new weapons in the battle against an old nemesis – saltwater intrusion.
All of Earth's water in a single sphere!
This image shows blue spheres representing relative amounts of Earth's water in comparison to the size of the Earth. Are you surprised that these water spheres look so small? They are only small in relation to the size of the Earth. These images attempt to show three dimensions, so each sphere represents "volume." They show that in comparison to the volume of the globe,
...
Salt, Sodium, Chlorine
Mineral: Halite (NaCl)
Primary mineral Commodity: Salt
Commodity Uses: Highway deicing accounted for about 44% of total salt consumed in 2016. Salt is also used as feedstock for chlorine and caustic soda manufacture; these two inorganic chemicals are used to make many consumer-related end-use products, such as
Large wave crashing on the reef at Laysan Island
A large wave crashes on the reef at Laysan Island, located in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Mountain of Salt
This photo shows a road salt storage stockpile that is awaiting use for pavement deicing, Port of Milwaukee, WI. The use of salt to deice pavement can be harmful to aquatic life in urban streams. The USGS is involved in studies that focus on the influence of winter runoff on aquatic ecosystems.
Why is the ocean salty?
Why is the ocean salty? Rivers discharge mineral-rich water to the oceans is from outflow from rivers, which drain the landscape, thus causing the oceans to be salty.
(July-September 1973) --- A vertical view of the Montevideo, Uruguay area of South America is seen in this Skylab 3 Earth Resources Experiments Package S190-B (five-inch Earth terrain camera)
...