Welcome to You Ask Andy

 

Raymond Pyfalout, age 12, of Logan, for his question:

How much salt is there in ocean water?

Ocean water contains all kinds of chemicals. Twen metals, such as gold, silver and magnesium are dissolved in the spas. But most. of the chemicals are salts and the most plentiful salt in ocean water is sodium chloride ‑ ordinary table salt.

Let's sift the chemicals from a cubic mile of ocean water. This water fills a huge tank a mile long, a mile high and a mile wide. We evaporate the water and see what is left. In the bottom of the tank we find 16 million tons of chemicals and almost 7_ percent of these chemicals is ordinary salt.

This means that there is almost 130 million tons of salt in every cubic mile of sea water. There is about 45 quadrillion tons of salt dissolved in all the oceans. This is enough to cover North America with a later of salt over half a mile deep. There is no danger that the world will ever ran short of salt.

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