If a planet was completely covered in water, wouldn't it all be freshwater?
If a planet was completely covered in water, wouldn't it all be freshwater?
If water flowing over continents in rivers is what concentrates salt in our ocean, would a planet that has always been covered in water just be freshwater? The water is just sitting there, not eroding through salts.
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The water is just sitting there, not eroding through salts.
Is the ocean still or famously active?
But all jokes aside freshwater is salt free because it has been distilled by the evaporation/cloud/rainfall part of the water cycle. When rain falls in the ocean it mixes pretty quickly.
Running water causes a lot more erosion than stationary bodies of water. Consider lakes, which are still cycling water much like a river, but over thousands of years they deposit so much silt that they cease to exist. That's the opposite of erosion.
Underwater erosion is certainly a thing, but in comparison to downhill water erosion on land, it's pretty insignificant. It does not seem a given that it could significantly offset the processes that remove salt from salt water.