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Water science news, explainers, and statistics covering freshwater, hydrology, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice, and Earth’s connected water systems.

Open ocean water surface

Why Is the Ocean Salty?

Take a sip of seawater and your mouth gets the answer before your brain does. The ocean holds a huge load of dissolved minerals and that gives it its sharp, familiar taste. For a question that sounds almost childlike, the real answer stretches across rainstorms, rivers, deep cracks in the seafloor and spans of time…