Often the sailors of ships that were wrecked or lost in the sea waters, died of thirst. But very few people know why it is so as there is a lot of water around. The thing is that the sea water is saturated with such a composition that it is not suitable for the human body and does not quench your thirst. In addition, the sea has salt water which has a specific taste, bitter-salty, and for drinking, it does not fit. It’s all because of the salts dissolved in it. We’ll figure out how they got there.
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5. SALINIZATION HAD STARTED BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO
It turns out that the rivers and lakes also have salty water. But the content of salts in them is so small that it is almost invisible. According to the first theory, river waters, falling into the seas and oceans evaporate, and salts and minerals remain. Because of it, their concentration increases all the time and the water in the sea and in the ocean becomes salty. According to scientists, the process of salinization of the seas takes place over a billion years. But on the contrary to the first theory, it is proved that the water in the world ocean does not change their chemical composition for a long time. And those elements that fall into the river water only support the oceanic composition but do not change. From this fact follows another theory. The salt has a crystalline consistency. Waves, beating against the shore, are washed by stones. They form lunettes. When the water evaporates, the salt crystals remain in these wells. When the stone is destroyed, the salt again gets into the water and it becomes salty.
4. Volcanic Eruptions made ocean water salty
The consequence of volcanic activity. Scientists have concluded that in the seas water was salty even in those times when the planet did not exist humanity. And the reason for this was the volcanoes. Earth’s crust for many years was formed by the release of magma. And volcanic gasses contain chemical combinations of chlorine, fluorine, and bromine. They got into the ocean waters in the form of acid rain and initially the water in the ocean was acidic. This water broke the crystalline rocks of the earth’s crust and extracted magnesium, potassium, and calcium. These acids began to form salts, as a result of reaction with solid earth rocks. Few people know that the salt habitual for us was formed due to the reaction of perchloric acid from the ocean and sodium ions from volcanic rocks. Thus, the sea water gradually became less acidic and saltier. And by our time a sour taste has disappeared altogether and we are only observing salty sea water. The supporters of this theory are confident that the modern properties of the water of the seas and oceans acquired 500,000,000 years ago. It was then that the Earth freed itself from the volcanic gasses and the water composition stabilized. And carbonates that penetrate the sea with the river current, disappear from the water composition due to the inhabitants of the underwater world, which filter and purify the water. They use these minerals to build shells that protect the body from mechanical influences.
3. Minerals have salt in composition
Because of the fact that the composition of water varies in different parts of the sea at different times of the year, the salt composition can vary. It depends on the depth and intensity of evaporation. Where it is deep and cool (that is, evaporation is less), then the composition of salt in water is less. Where it is smaller and at high temperature the water is salty, because the water evaporates, the minerals remain and concentrate the rest of the water. But these indicators are not significant, according to this it is commonly believed that the salinity of water does not change. Nowadays, scientists believe that both theories have the right to exist, and they only complement each other.
2. Atmospheric gasses have negatively charged ions
In addition, the sea water contains atmospheric gasses (nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide) and a small amount of inert gases. In the depths of the sea, because of the absence of oxygen, hydrogen sulphide forms. There is no gas in the atmosphere. However, many people probably know the concept of “hydrogen sulphide baths”, which are used in medicine for the treatment of various diseases.
Contained in salt water, negatively charged ions destroy positively charged ions in our body, due to which the sea exerts a relaxing effect on the body. Only resting near the sea, we can really relax and at the same time feel a surge of energy. In addition, the sea air activates the protective functions of the body, improves its metabolic processes, strengthens the nervous and endocrine systems.
1. Marine life has influenced sea water
Some marine organisms concentrate or secrete chemical elements that are present in such minute amounts in sea water as to be almost undetectable: lobsters concentrate copper and cobalt; snails secrete lead; the sea cucumber extracts vanadium, and sponges and certain seaweeds remove iodine from the sea.
Sea life has a strong influence on the composition of sea water. However, some elements in sea water are not affected to any apparent extent by plant or animal life. For example, no known biological process removes the element sodium from the sea.
In addition to biological influences, the factors of solubility and physical-chemical reaction rates also help to explain the composition of sea water. The solubility of a constituent may limit its concentration in sea water. Excess calcium (more calcium than the water can hold) may be precipitated out of the water and deposited on the sea floor as calcium carbonate. Presumably as a result of physical-chemical reactions not well understood, the metal manganese occurs as nodules in many places on the ocean floor. Similarly, phosphorite (phosphate rock) is found in large amounts on the sea bottom off southern California and in lesser amounts in other places.
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