Is the sea still 'seasoned' with salt?
If you've ever been to the beach, you've probably even tasted the seawater unintentionally. It's pretty salty, but where does all that salt come from? The process is long and begins with rain falling on rocks. It “washes” the stones and carries the basic components that make up salt: chlorine and sodium.
As this process is continuous, the sea continues to be salinized eternally. For every liter of seawater, about 40 grams of salt can be removed. Now comes another question: If the sea continues to be "temperate" all the time, should it no longer look like the Dead Sea, which has a higher salt concentration per cubic meter?
In theory, it would have. In practice, however, there are so-called “salt sinks, ” which have been responsible for keeping the saline rate nearly constant for about 200 million years. There are several processes that help balance the amount of salt in the world's seas.
Salt sinks
The first explanation is in the evaporation of water. This process lowers sea level by increasing the salt concentration. Eventually this concentration will be so high in certain places that salt is no longer dissolved in water, creating sedimentary deposits of salty rocks.
The wind creates another process: it sprays the seawater back into the earth, carrying salt, which settles in anticipation of a new rain that will carry it back to the ocean. Other processes are chemical: volcanic lava at the bottom of the sea reacts with salt ions, dissolving them. In addition, some types of seafloor clay interact with salinized particles, absorbing them and helping to balance sea salt.
Some animals also absorb sea salt, especially those that make shells. And we must not forget, of course, that the melting of the ice caps and the discharge of rivers into the oceans provide a constant amount of fresh water, continually balancing sea salinity.
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