If water flowing over continents in rivers is what concentrates salt in our ocean, would a planet that has always been covered in water just be freshwater? The water is just sitting there, not eroding through salts.
Water and salts are a package deal. If you have a planet with one, you’re going to have all the others as well, because they all come from an exploding star.
When a star goes supernova, it creates oxygen, which can later combine with hydrogen to make water. That very same supernova also makes sodium, potassium, magnesium, chlorine, sulfur etc. so you end up with all the elements for making a bunch of different salts. Ask physicists why supernova does this sort of packaging.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 day ago
There is salt in the earth.
Salt dissolves in water.
If earth was covered completely, there would be even more salt in it.
HotDayBreeze@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Yeah, but not all that salt is in contact with water. There are huge deposits of salt under the Mediterranean, yet they have not dissolved into the ocean. You have to actually strip away the non-salt components to get enough water to salt contact to actually dissolve enough salt to make that much water salty.