OK so how long is "it won't be long" Plus who thinks we aren't gong to trash the earth first. We already have a pretty good head start. Anybody want to take a guess as what this place is going to look like in 50 years?
Why is sea water salty?
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fire_diver
Contributor
well, it looks a hell of a lot better than it did 50 years ago before any regulations were in place to control polution, dumping of toxins into creeks, throwing every single peice of garbage out your window.
Not to say that those things dont still happen, but not nearly on the scale that it once was.
FD
Not to say that those things dont still happen, but not nearly on the scale that it once was.
FD
For some of the older people on this board, things realy are better than they were 30 years ago (not good enough, but significantly better still). The pressing problem that we can solve today is introduced species (e.g. C. Taxifolia). As divers, we are in a unique position to notice the introduction of new species in an area, possibly in time to isolate and irradicate them.
Take a large glass of water and begin pouring NaCl into it and stirring. The salt will dissolve. At some point without going into the numbers you will notice that some of the added salt no longer disssolves. Well, actually it dissolves, some of it, but some of the already dissolved salt precipitates out. In land locked areas, Salt Lake of Utah, salt flats (once inland lakes/seas) and other places like the Dead Sea, as the water evaporates, leaving the salts behind you get some really salty water, In arid climates the lake may eventually dissappear and the remains are a salt flat. NaCl is not the only salt in the ocean, metals exist as various salts and ions in the sea.
The Rock Cycles explains the salty sea, rocks containing sodium, potasium and calcium and other elements are eroded by wind, water and ice and eventually the remains are carried to the sea and then much is eventually subducted. Why dioes the sea not continue to get more salty, living creatures uptake minerals from the sea (the shells becoming rock over eons--limestone), precipitation, melting of ice etc.
Not a complete and rather simplistic answer, given about 4.5 billion years you might get a little salty too. I have a MS plus 30 in Geology and studied coral reefs near Bimini and other places in the Bahamas for a bit, the ocean and the life in it are a marvel of complexity.
Will the earth be trashed-----I remain optimistic. I realize Global Warming is scary and I do think there is a human imput but the earth has been much warmer than now in the past, even the recent past (within the Holocene). Due to exceedingly complex reasons and some not fully understood, the earth has been cycling in and out of "ice-ages" for quite some time. Nothing about this cycle has been broken, actually, my opinion based on my reading and researching and my Geology background, eventually the earth will cool, the mechanisms for this may well be accelerated by human activity.
Life crawled out of the sea billions of years ago (by divine intervention--my belief system) and despite cataclysmic events, climate change, asteroid impacts, iceages, atmospheric change, disease, drought, fire and all and all--it PERSISTS --in great wonder and complexity. Let's work to keep it that way. N
The Rock Cycles explains the salty sea, rocks containing sodium, potasium and calcium and other elements are eroded by wind, water and ice and eventually the remains are carried to the sea and then much is eventually subducted. Why dioes the sea not continue to get more salty, living creatures uptake minerals from the sea (the shells becoming rock over eons--limestone), precipitation, melting of ice etc.
Not a complete and rather simplistic answer, given about 4.5 billion years you might get a little salty too. I have a MS plus 30 in Geology and studied coral reefs near Bimini and other places in the Bahamas for a bit, the ocean and the life in it are a marvel of complexity.
Will the earth be trashed-----I remain optimistic. I realize Global Warming is scary and I do think there is a human imput but the earth has been much warmer than now in the past, even the recent past (within the Holocene). Due to exceedingly complex reasons and some not fully understood, the earth has been cycling in and out of "ice-ages" for quite some time. Nothing about this cycle has been broken, actually, my opinion based on my reading and researching and my Geology background, eventually the earth will cool, the mechanisms for this may well be accelerated by human activity.
Life crawled out of the sea billions of years ago (by divine intervention--my belief system) and despite cataclysmic events, climate change, asteroid impacts, iceages, atmospheric change, disease, drought, fire and all and all--it PERSISTS --in great wonder and complexity. Let's work to keep it that way. N
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