Liputan6.com, jakarta – Anyone who once was dragging the waves on the beach would know very well how she feels salty sea water. And when swimming off the coast of Queensland, Australia, or play on the beach of Jersey, the USA – the taste of salt is the same. But you ever wondered where all the salt came from? Why does the sea feel much more salty than a lake or a river?
What is salt?
To understand the origin of the salty taste of the sea, we first need to know what salt is. Chemically, salt is a compound consisting of positive and negative charged ions that are attracted. For example, the kitchen salt that we usually use, or sodium chloride, is formed from positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions quoted from the page MentaflossMonday (7/7/2025).
Although sodium and chloride dominate the ocean, it turns out that they are not the only participants in the salty taste. “Salt in the sea is not only sodium and chloride, but also a mixture of other ions, such as magnesium and calcium, which is mainly from the rocks on land,” explained Dr. Morgan equal, an expert on organic geochemical issues and geobiology from the University of California, and Santa -Barbara.
Where did sea salt come from?
Most of the salt in the ocean actually comes from land. When it rains, rainwater is slightly sour, because it contains carbon dioxide, will destroy the rocks. The minerals of the rocks are then dissolved and carried away by the river until it flows into the sea.
In fact, about 85 percent of ions in the sea are sodium and chloride, while magnesium and sulfate introduced about 10 percent. Not all this salt will settle at sea forever, because some are absorbed in sea organisms. But thanks to the continuous supply of the river and the flow of water, the salt content in the sea remains stable.
In addition to the river, the sea also receives salt from underwater activity. Hydrothermal ventilation – a hole in the seabed, which erupted hot water from the heated magma – allows sea water to react with minerals around the clearance. Underwater volcanoes contribute, adding more salt to the world.
SAR Operation Search for the victims of the immersion of KMP Tun Pratama Jaya in the waters of the Bali Strait continues to be optimized to enter the second day, Friday (4/7). The search zone was expanded to a radius of 9 sea miles from the point of the ship.
