How does the ocean happen to have so many minerals? Let's see if we can duplicate a small part of the answer to this question.

Wash some aquarium sand several times, then set the sand out to dry. When it is dry, mix a teaspoonful of table salt with each 4 cups of dry sand. Make a simulated inclined river bed with aluminum foil, and pour the sand and salt mixture into the river bed. Place a bowl at one end to catch the river water.

Pour some rain water or distilled water at the top of the river bed. Taste the collected water to see if it contains salt, or set the collected water out to evaporate.

You will realize that in a similar way rain water dissolves salts in rocks and soil, carries them from the land by way of rivers, and deposits them in the oceans. Thus, the oceans now contain materials that have drained off the land for millions of centuries.

We'll have to ask some brilliant scientist, but this writer also believes that there is a chemical reaction caused by the salt water and certain other minerals in the ocean's
rocks that leach out those minerals.

We are also learning that the stuff that goes into the ocean by other than natural means has changed the chemistry of the ocean. Just think of all the "junk" that our wars have put into the oceans! The oceans, just like the earth, are living things. Much of our "technology," and all of our abuse, is slowly killing the earth, the oceans, and their inhabitants. That's pretty scary.