why the ocean is salty but river is not?
In: Planetary Science
It is not a salty or not. All water have a bit of salt in it. The water sold in shops is called mineral water because it have salt minerals in it. But not as much as ocean water. Rivers pick up salts from the ground it flows through. The more ground it flows through the more salt in it. This is why ground water tends to have more salt in it then river water.
The rivers bring the salt out to the ocean. In the oceans the water will evaporate, but salt does not. The oceans will therefore retain its salt while the water evaporates into the atmosphere and rain down on the mountains where it will pick up more salt. This means the oceans have gotten a lot more saltier then the rivers will ever be.
Rivers can have a little salt, that’s how it gets into the ocean. But, once salt gets into the ocean it can’t get out. The water evaporates and falls later as rain, that’s the water cycle, but the salt system isn’t a cycle, it’s a flow from land to sea.
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