01-07-2000 - Kids

sagar: Author=’Tara Ross, Deborah Byrd’ program=” video=”April, in Roanoke, Virginia, wants to know, “Why is the sea salty?”

April, to understand the answer, take a glass of water – and a spoonful of salt – put the salt in the water and stir it up! You’ll see that salt dissolves easily in water.

You also need to know that there are natural chemicals in rocks all over the surface of Earth that form salts. And, whenever it rains, these chemicals are dissolved out of the rocks – washed into the ground – and ultimately carried by rivers and streams into the sea. So the sea is salty because salts are washed from land into the sea.

Salt can also go from sea to land. When sea level is high, shallow seas can cover some parts of a continent. When sea level drops again -for example, during an ice age – salt can be left behind.

But, throughout the long history of the Earth, most of the salt has gone the other way – from land to sea. In fact, it’s been said that all things flow to the sea. That’s why when someone empties a car’s radiator onto a supermarket parking lot at night when nobody’s looking, that Ethylene Glycol will be washed by rain into storm drains, into streams and rivers, and ultimately into the sea. April, thanks for your question.

Written by EarthSky

2 Responses to “Private: Why is ocean water salty?”

1. lana says:

   March 23, 2007 at 12:56 pm

   can u please tell me how did the ocean get salty? send the answer in looloocutie@Hotmail.com

   Reply
2. Deborah Byrd says:

   March 23, 2007 at 2:54 pm

   Hi lana,

   Your answer is in the radio show above … the sea is salty because salts are washed from land into the sea.

   All the best,
   Deborah

   Reply