Why is the sea water salty?
A long-awaited trip to the sea for a smallthe child is very cognitive and amazing. Having bathed at least once in the salt sea, the kid will ask parents why the water in the sea is salty. Do not worry that you are embarrassed by his question. Not every parent will remember the primary school curriculum. He's not so often faced with such a question in his life and forget it is typical of many.
Why is the water in the sea salty, and in the river and the lake - fresh
You will be surprised, but even scientists will not be able toyour child to give an accurate answer to his question about salt water. The mystery for the specialists is how much salt accumulated in the sea, where it originally came from. But there are a number of versions, which we now consider.
Explain to the baby that when it rains, hedissolves small particles of salts that are in the soil and in rocky rocks. Brooks form, which flow into rivers. Rivers, in turn, flow into the sea and carry salt there. And salt piles into the sea, that's why ... The sun is shining, under its influence, water evaporates, and the salt remains in the sea. The water then again falls to the ground in the form of precipitation, and the same process is repeated. Imagine how much salt could accumulate in the seas for millions of years! To make it clearer, sketch out schematically why the water in the sea is salty.
The second version of the scientists as to why waterin the sea is salty, is as follows. Initially, when the Earth appeared, the water in the sea was already salty, and the rivers and lakes were fresh. We are talking about a time when life on Earth did not even exist. Imagine how long ago it was! Rivers flow into the sea, and the sea can not flow into the river, so salt does not pass into other bodies of water from the sea and the ocean. Salt is retained in large bodies of water. The substances brought by the river settle on the bottom of the seas mostly, and under the pressure of water the landscape of the seabed also changes.
Today, scientists hold such an opinion,that there are certain substances that can make water salty. Their appearance in the seas is associated with volcanic activity in the earth's crust. Magmatic rocks erupted from the mantle, mixed with water and gave it salinity.
We no longer return to the past and do not look,as everything was in ancient times, how everything was born and began. The composition of the seas does not change for hundreds of millions of years, so now it is extremely difficult for us to affirm and prove our idea of the accumulation of salts in the seas.
