Why is the sea saltier than rivers?

Answer 1

River water starts as runoff from rain or melted ice and snow. The flowing water dissolves very small traces of salts from the rocks and minerals along its path and carries these to the ocean. Sea water retains most of the dissolved salts, and the world's oceans now have a salinity of about 35 parts per thousand parts of water (about 3.5% salts).

Answer 2

Because more sand gets washed into the ocean than streams.The tide of a wave brings the sand out to the ocean.Streams don't have tides,all they do is go were the lanes lead them.They don't go every were like the water in the ocean,so the pick up very little sand.

(They go with the flow)

ADDED: The question is about salt, not sand. The oceans are salty thanks to minerals dissolved from the rocks on land by fresh rain-water, and carried into the sea by the rivers. Water is evaporated from the sea, leaving the salts behind, condenses as distilled water, falls as rain and snow on land, so continues the "Water Cycle".

Answer 3

This is a VERY good question. Many think that if ocean water is salty, the rest of the water should be salty, too; and vice versa. However, as we all know, this simply is not true. But why?

Well, in 1715, Sir Edmund Halley proposed the idea that all the earth's rivers, streams, lakes, and other sources of water on land that deposit water into the ocean carried very small amounts of minerals into the ocean. Over time, they became concentrated and have been compounding more and more through the earth's hydrologic cycle (or water cycle). What he didn't know is that when the earth's ocean floor formed, sodium was released. He also didn't know that there are volcanoes and natural hydrothermal vents which deposit chloride. The two elements create what we call sodium chloride (or simply salt).

So, does the ocean become more salty over time?

Not necessarily. It is believed that the saltiness (or salinity) of the ocean has been relatively stable for billions of years and will likely remain that way for as long as humans are around; assuming we haven't destroyed it. One theory for the constant level of salinity in ocean water is that plate tectonics play a major role in both moving and removing salts, through mixing salts with other chemicals and elements, moving them below the ocean floor's surface, or by burying sodium under land masses.

Did you know that some regions of the earth's oceans are more saline than others?

Answer 4

Rivers carry salt from their river beds into the ocean. The ocean never loses salt. It just gets saltier.

Answer 5

because its to different kind of

seas

Answer 6

are you insane? seas are saltiest.