Hello Paul,

Interesting thought... here is some info.

"All water, even rain water, contains dissolved chemicals which scientists call "salts." "

"Some scientists estimate that the oceans contain as much as 50 quadrillion tons (50 million billion tons) of dissolved solids. If the salt in the sea could be removed and spread evenly over the Earth's land surface it would form a layer more than 500 feet thick, about the height of a 40-story office building."

"The saltiest water (40 o/oo ) occurs in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, where rates of evaporation are very high. Of the major oceans, the North Atlantic is the saltiest; its salinity averages about 37.9 o/oo. Within the North Atlantic, the saltiest part is the Sargasso Sea, an area of about 2 million square miles, located about 2,000 miles west of the Canary Islands."

"IF FRESH WATER FLOWS OUT TO THE SEA, WHY IS THE SEA STILL SALTY?...
The Mississippi, Amazon, and Yukon Rivers empty respectively into the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean, all of which are salty. Why aren't the oceans as fresh as the river waters that empty into them? Because the saltiness of the ocean is the result of several natural influences and processes, the salt load of the streams entering the ocean is just one of these factors."

The article is very long - you can go read it to get the full scoop at

http://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/salty_ocean.htm

Hope it answers all the salty sea questions.

--Islander

You are a wealth of knowledge. Thanks

Awesomeness Isalnder!

My post was meant to be a light hearted insertion into a somewhat complicated week for many - more so for others, than for me personally. But heh, the chance to learn something is what this message board is all about, and I do thank you for bringing the point home so thoroughly. I will definately check the site you included.
What a blessing to see the sun this morning!!!!!

Figured you were being funny but I really did think it was an interesting subject and thought others might find the ocean fast facts interesting - I did. 🙂

--Islander

And here - a few more paragraphs from the site provided above by Islander.

Throughout the world, rivers carry an estimated 4 billion tons of dissolved salts to the ocean annually. About the same tonnage of salt from the ocean water probably is deposited as sediment on the ocean bottom, and thus, yearly gains may offset yearly losses. In other words, the oceans today probably have a balanced salt input and outgo.

Past accumulations of dissolved and suspended solids in the sea do not explain completely why the ocean is salty. Salts become concentrated in the sea because the Sun's heat distills or vaporizes almost pure water from the surface of the sea and leaves the salts behind. This process is part of the continual exchange of water between the Earth and the atmosphere that is called the hydrologic cycle.

Water vapor rises from the ocean surface and is carried landward by the winds. When the vapor collides with a colder mass of air, it condenses (changes from a gas to a liquid) and falls to Earth as rain. The rain runs off into streams which in turn transport water to the ocean. Evaporation from both the land and the ocean again causes water to return to the atmosphere as vapor and the cycle starts anew. The ocean, then, is not fresh like river water because of the huge accumulation of salts by evaporation and the contribution of raw salts from the land. In fact, since the first rainfall, the seas have become saltier.