Is the ocean salty because of whale sperm?
Thanks to Snooki who explains why she hates the oceans and why is the ocean salty. From this weeks Jersey Shore episode, Snooki had a boyfriend named Jeff. Her short-lived beau wanted to take a dip in the ocean, but she informed him : “I f—in’ hate the ocean. Too much whale sperm. Everybody Google it, because that’s why the water is salty. F—in’ whale sperm.”
Imagine, just because Snooki said to Google it… many people are googling it. And she even said that the ocean is salty because of all the ‘f—-ng whale sperm’ and that is why she doesn’t want to go in the ocean, because of all the sperm. But don’t worry though, the ocean is not salty because of whale sperm, that’s just wrong. According to sources, as water flows in rivers, it picks up small amounts of mineral salts from the rocks and soil of the river beds. This very-slightly salty water flows into the oceans and seas. The water in the oceans only leaves by evaporating (and the freezing of polar ice), but the salt remains dissolved in the ocean – it does not evaporate. So the remaining water gets saltier and saltier as time passes.
The salinity (salt content) of ocean water varies. The oceans and seas contain roughly 5 x 10 16 tons of salts. One cubic foot of average sea water contains 2.2 pounds of salt. The oceans are about 3.5% salt (by weight). Salinity is generally reported in terms of parts per thousand (abbreviated o/oo), the number of pounds of salt per 1,000 pounds of water; the average ocean salinity is 35 o/oo.
The saltiest water is in the Red Sea and in the Persian Gulf, which have a salinity of about 40 o/oo (due to very high evaporation rates and low fresh water influx). The least salty seas are in the polar regions, where both melting polar ice and a lot of rain dilute the salinity.
Now you know why the ocean is salty. SOURCE