# The ocean's salt could blanket the Earth's land surface in a whopping 500-foot layer **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 16, 2023, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203 "2023-09-16T11:52:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JimNightshade](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jimnightshade/32/3354_2.png) [@JimNightshade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimNightshade)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/1 "2023-09-16T11:52:19Z")
Do many people know this? > **[The ocean's salt could blanket the Earth's land surface in a whopping...](https://boingboing.net/2023/09/15/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer.html)** > > The source of salt in the ocean is from rocks on land. Carbon dioxide in rainwater corrodes rocks as it wends its way to the ocean, bringing with dissolved minerals. According to the United States … ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/2 "2023-09-16T12:01:43Z")
I think the underlying surprising fact is that the **mean** depth of the oceans is over 12,000 feet. There’s twice as much ocean as land, so a 500ft layer blanketing the land surface is only around 2 percent of the oceans by volume. That concentration of salt isn’t in itself surprising, in fact I think the 500ft figure is a little low. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/3 "2023-09-16T12:02:47Z")
The original Gaia hypothesis (?) mentioned that one indication that a greater good seemed to be at work geologically, was that if all the salt on earth got into the oceans at the same time, the oceans would be too saline to support life. Interestingly, the earth is continually developing new shallows that eventually become salt pans and then trap layers of salt under the soil thus ensuring the oceans do not get too salty. One example is the vast expanses of salt layers under central North America, where there used to be an ocean in the dinosaur age. > The concentration of salt in seawater (its salinity) is about **35 parts per thousand** ; in other words, about 3.5% of the weight of seawater comes from the dissolved salts. In a cubic mile of seawater, the weight of the salt (as sodium chloride) would be about 120 million tons. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/4 "2023-09-16T12:37:08Z")
[Moderating] “Hey, look at this neat fact I found” is a better fit for MPSIMS than FQ. Moving. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/5 "2023-09-16T15:35:25Z")
Or maybe just move the three posts into the Interesting Random Facts thread? I doubt this one random fact deserves a whole thread of its own. But maybe that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![JimNightshade](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jimnightshade/32/3354_2.png) [@JimNightshade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimNightshade)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/6 "2023-09-16T17:09:21Z")
It was a joke once, for 20 minutes > [@Not many people know that...](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-many-people-know-that/271647?page=5): > > [If the salt in the sea could be removed and spread evenly over the Earth’s land surface it would form a layer more than 500 feet thick, about the height of a 40 story office building.](http://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/salty_ocean.htm) Man has landed on the moon six times and spent almost 300 hours on the moons surface (not all EVA). Yet man has visited the deepest part of the worlds oceans, Challenger Deep in the Mariana’s Trench, just once. In 1960. For 20 minutes.[Man has visited the deepest part of the worlds oceans, Challenger Deep in the Ma…](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Trieste) ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/7 "2023-09-16T19:07:00Z")
Sounds like a meal at Sonic. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/8 "2023-09-16T19:47:05Z")
This would increase the diameter of the earth by .01 percent. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2023, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oceans-salt-could-blanket-the-earths-land-surface-in-a-whopping-500-foot-layer/990203/9 "2023-09-16T19:50:17Z")
> [@JimNightshade](#): > > Do many people know this? Now everyone does.