3 ms·
This doesn't explain why the water in springs, creeks, and rivers isn't salty. There is much more water in an ocean for the salt to disperse than in a creek, s
by k__ 3y ago
This doesn't explain why the water in springs, creeks, and rivers isn't salty.
There is much more water in an ocean for the salt to disperse than in a creek, somehow I can drink from it, but not from the ocean.
- mcv 3y agoI suspect it's because the erosion of the elements from land happens extremely slowly and barely detectable trace amounts, but the oceans is where they accumulate over the course of billions of years. I think the real answer is that these elements (sodium and chloride) easily dissolve in water, and there's no process that removes them from the ocean, so they linger and accumulate.
- onethought 3y agoBecause the water is flowing, in only one direction, with no feedback. So any salt is taken out and put into the ocean/sea it connects to.
- chakintosh 3y agoWater from springs (then creeks) comes out of the ground pre-filtered, some springs are salty, others are red from high concentrations of iron and so on. Second reason is because it's running water, so it doesn't stay in one place accumulating minerals.
- rocqua 3y agoThere is a slight amount of salt in the rivers, but it is very low. In the oceans, this accumulates, but the water evaporates. Hence the salt content goes up whilst the water volume remains constant (ignoring ice melt) which means the salt concentration goes up.
- Tangurena2 3y agoIn the early days of trying to determine the age of the Earth, one set of scientists were trying to determine from mineral flows from rivers into the oceans. Depending on which mineral was picked, the Earth was as young as 20,000,000 or as old as 10x that.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoThose waters come from rain