4 ms·

Supernovae, originally. As the Earth cooled, salts in rocks dissolved. When the Arctic Ocean started mixing with other oceans, the brine was entrained in over t

Supernovae, originally. As the Earth cooled, salts in rocks dissolved. When the Arctic Ocean started mixing with other oceans, the brine was entrained in over time.

poulsbohemian 6y ago
Thank you! This is good info.
wombatmobile 6y ago
When? When had most of the salt dissolved into the sea?
mnl 6y ago
Oxygen, for instance, comes from supernovae too, so following this implied line of reasoning also would water. I don't think the question was about nucleosynthesis and certainly supernovae don't eject salts, they form much later after planetary differentiation.
- labster 6y ago
  They asked an eli5 question, I gave an eli5 answer. Which is totally okay! Not all of us hackers spent/wasted our college years in the geosciences. I left out lots of stuff, like chemical weathering, thermohaline circulation, glacial damming, and Milankovich cycles which probably explain a lot more... but I’m a climatologist not a geologist so there’s a whole lot more about the chemistry I don’t understand.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    That's a smart 5 year old you've got there that knows about stellar evolution ;)
    - mncharity 6y ago
      I've been exploring a bit what an early-primary "atoms up" learning progression variant might look like, if it emphasized atoms as nuclei. I've needed some nucleosynthesis, and stars and stuff swirling 'round the galaxy in deep time, but not much stellar evolution. Not that you couldn't teach it, but it doesn't seem required here. Hazen's mineral evolution story was made into a NOVA. Some years back, before the NOVA, it had anecdotally been used down to high-school, but he didn't know of any attempts at middle or primary school. But it seems the usual science education dynamic is no one trying, or doing a miserable job of it, rather than hitting a rigid accessibility envelope. The cluefulness cost space can be surprisingly shaped. Teach a 5-year old that sunlight is white, and so is the Sun, and after that second bit, they're already less confused there than most first-tier astronomy and physical sciences graduate students. I suggest we've little idea yet how early much of science might be taught, because we've been half-assing it.
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    > but I’m a climatologist not a geologist so there’s a whole lot more about the chemistry I don’t understand. And pedagogy.
jojobas 6y ago
The Arctic ocean started mixed with the rest. The heavy ice/low water level period was somewhere between the formation of oceans and modern days.
mncharity 6y ago
> As the Earth cooled, salts in rocks dissolved. This might be misread as a primordial origin event. Ocean chlorine and sodium residence times are under 100 Myr. So an ongoing process, with rocks dissolving, and excess precipitating.

Supernovae, originally. As the Earth cooled, salts in rocks dissolved. When the Arctic Ocean started mixing with other oceans, the brine was entrained in over time.

poulsbohemian 6y ago

Thank you! This is good info.

wombatmobile 6y ago

When? When had most of the salt dissolved into the sea?

mnl 6y ago

Oxygen, for instance, comes from supernovae too, so following this implied line of reasoning also would water. I don't think the question was about nucleosynthesis and certainly supernovae don't eject salts, they form much later after planetary differentiation.

labster 6y ago
They asked an eli5 question, I gave an eli5 answer. Which is totally okay! Not all of us hackers spent/wasted our college years in the geosciences. I left out lots of stuff, like chemical weathering, thermohaline circulation, glacial damming, and Milankovich cycles which probably explain a lot more... but I’m a climatologist not a geologist so there’s a whole lot more about the chemistry I don’t understand.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- saagarjha 6y ago
  That's a smart 5 year old you've got there that knows about stellar evolution ;)
  - mncharity 6y ago
    I've been exploring a bit what an early-primary "atoms up" learning progression variant might look like, if it emphasized atoms as nuclei. I've needed some nucleosynthesis, and stars and stuff swirling 'round the galaxy in deep time, but not much stellar evolution. Not that you couldn't teach it, but it doesn't seem required here. Hazen's mineral evolution story was made into a NOVA. Some years back, before the NOVA, it had anecdotally been used down to high-school, but he didn't know of any attempts at middle or primary school. But it seems the usual science education dynamic is no one trying, or doing a miserable job of it, rather than hitting a rigid accessibility envelope. The cluefulness cost space can be surprisingly shaped. Teach a 5-year old that sunlight is white, and so is the Sun, and after that second bit, they're already less confused there than most first-tier astronomy and physical sciences graduate students. I suggest we've little idea yet how early much of science might be taught, because we've been half-assing it.
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  > but I’m a climatologist not a geologist so there’s a whole lot more about the chemistry I don’t understand. And pedagogy.

jojobas 6y ago

The Arctic ocean started mixed with the rest. The heavy ice/low water level period was somewhere between the formation of oceans and modern days.

mncharity 6y ago

> As the Earth cooled, salts in rocks dissolved. This might be misread as a primordial origin event. Ocean chlorine and sodium residence times are under 100 Myr. So an ongoing process, with rocks dissolving, and excess precipitating.