After reading this question about the origin of NaCl on Earth, I'm wondering: How did the amount of NaCl develop historically? Is it a more or less linear growth until today? Was it such a linear growth and then reached a level that it maintains until now? Or was that more complex over the billions of years of Earth's existence?
1 Answer
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Here is a graph describing modern estimates of ocean salinity throughout the Phanerozoic (past ~550 million years). The original PDF of this study can be found here:
As this graph shows, it is not linear at all and actually decreasing since the end of the Precambrian. This is a result of many factors including changing volume of ocean water, and the global chloride cycle. The details are all described in that paper.