Mon, 28 Sep 1998 06:09:05 -0600 you answered my previous note:
>"If there is no way it could ever crystalize when the whole is not at
>saturation levels, maybe the oceans have not been receiving salt for very
>long."
>
>This is a problem only for your precipitation scenario. In the real world
>there are places in the Pacific and the Middle East where ocean water can
>become sequestered in lagoons or bays (I'm sure Glenn could explain the
>mechanism better) where evaporation would then quickly raise the saturation
>level of the remaining water up to, then beyond, that needed for the
>various salt species to crystallize out.
There are places like that in San Francisco bay, too. But that doesn't
account for the ocean balance.
Glenn did have a better explanation, that of basalt soaking up Na+ at the
mid oceanic ridges. It's at http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/salt.htm. If
you agree with his calculations, the problem would seem to be solved for
the long age scenario.
There may be all kinds of other factors,tho. We may be orders of magnitude
off!
Karen