Ocean - Sea SaltThe Oceans are gaining sodium at an increasing rate- over 300 Million tons per year- through the absorption of land sediments.

Assuming a uniform and consistent rate; and calculating the current amount of sodium in the ocean, it could not be more then 65 million years old. This is derived by calculating backwards from the current, known rate of sodium increase/ per year.

Additionally, there is no known absorption factor that could account for the necessary amount of sodium removal needed to equal a preventative measure if the earth was hundreds of millions of years old. The oceans should have practically absorbed all the Earth’s sedimentary salts by now, but for some reason it has not.

Seawater is approx 2.7% sodium chloride (salt) and is the most prominent positive ion in the ocean. The amount of salt in the seawater has been studied for over 300 years, thus it is a process we have studied more then many other processes on earth, and has a strong indication to the earth being young.

As the rivers overflow into the oceans they continually pickup rocks and sediment they erode dumping sodium into the oceans. Sodium’s is also deposited into the ocean by glaciers, hydrothermal vents, ground rivers and volcanic emissions.

Scientist have evaluated an average of approx. 457 million tons of sodium being deposited into the sea per year, without reaching any type of equilibrium.


Current Sodium Absorption Factors – Calculations

There are also several natural processes in which the ocean absorbs and redeposit sodium back into landmass; such as water spray onto land, substances in the ocean like clay and zeolites absorb sodium:

The average rate of loss per year is estimated to be 122 million tons per year.

So this will give us a net value of 457 – 122 = 335 million tons of sodium per year.

Provided these rates have remained constant; to reach the level of sodium we currently see today it would only take approx. 35 Million years.


Upper Limits for Error

Variances and margins for error have been calculated to try and come up with an upper limit of exactly how old the earth could possible be using the salts in the ocean as the unit of measurement.

It has been determined that if the oceans get rid of the salt faster then we think, then the absolutely maximum output would be 206 million tons per year; and if the oceans are depositing the  sodium slower then we think, the absolutely minimum salt deposited per year would be 356 million tons per year.

Using these very over generous figures, this still gives us 356 – 206 = 150 million tons deposited per year giving us an end result that the world oceans could only be a absolute maximum of only 62 million years.



1.DR. Jay L. Wile – Nuclear Chemist website:

2. Halley, E., “A short account of the cause of the saltiness of the ocean, and of the several lakes that emit no rivers; with a proposal, by help thereof, to discover the age of the world,” Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. 29:296-300, 1715.

3. Austin, S.A. and Humphreys, D. R., The Sea’s Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, 2:17-33, 1990.