Why is there salt in the ocean waters?
First let’s define salt. Salt doesn’t just mean your everyday table salt, there are all different types of salts. Every time you have an acid-base chemical reaction, you get at least two end products: a salt and water. So salts are everywhere. Now, I guess the question is why is there so much salt in the oceans. Well, most salts are soluble in water, so all the acid base reactions in the world create all these aqueous solutions of salt and water. Water always flows downhill, towards the lowest possible elevation it can reach. The rivers of the world start at the tops of mountains as melting snowfall, they pick up the salts from the rocks and such as they flow downhill, and then they deposit the salts at the bottom, the oceans. And as water evaporates, the salts precipitate out and get left behind, making the oceans salty. Then the water falls again as rain and the whole cycle continues.
