eli5: How does one body of water’s dirty water not mix in with others?

Question

I’m thinking more so like oceans. Two different locations that share the same ocean can have clean and dirty water, but how?

In: 0

Answer 1

Ok so this is a very dense topic, please bare with me but I’ll try my best. Bodies of water do meet, there are pictures you can see of rivers entering the ocean, there you will notice a “cloud” in the water, that’s the solids entering the water system. When they meet the stark contrast is visible for our eyes but as they mix, the particles diffuse into the ocean and over time the river murk is diluted, mathematically c1v1 = c2v2, your ocean has more volume but less concentration, river low volume high concentration, in the end you get massive volume, Very Low turbidity.

For your viewing please, the Amazon river; https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1h1q80/in_response_to_where_the_caribbean_and_atlantic/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

As for “dirty” water, it is geographically related. The waters on say a Reef will have a more higher viral load than say bumfuck nowhere in the Arctic Ocean, this is because of traffic, the places with highest amount of human activity will have most about of pollution. The waters around India and China is filled with plastics, after storms all this is thrown onto the beaches and we can see it. 1 ml of Ocean Water nearly has 10^stupid number of viral particles, that’s stupid high number, like Tony Stark Rich kinda big number.

Mixing of the ocean, they do. But elevation is key, water only goes down hill, and once it hits its lowest position it can only reset via one of the means of the water cycle (evaporation majority in oceans). The Dead Sea is very salty, it’s elevation is lower than the ocean, over years the ocean water feeds into it but the water evaporates the salt stays behind.

Temperature has great affect on pollution and dirtyness too, however I cannot sufficiently explain it other than, hotter water is better for life and therefore more pollutants and contaminants exist in warmer waters for humans. Hot to a limit to 54 C, after which you start going backwards.