Where did salt form?

[Frank Hovis]

I've seen the violent chemical reaction, soft white metal meet poisonous green gas, but I don't understand in what conditions that sodium chloride would have formed in the first place. And especially in such vast quantities.

So where and how did all the salt form given that there wasn't going to be great lumps of pure sodium lying around to have green chlorine clouds swirl around them?

Or was there?

I have had a search and couldn't find a decent answer.

[Transistor Man]

My guess:

If you go back to the start.

The individual atoms of Sodium and Chlorine in our seas, and salt deposits was made by nucleosynthesis in stars, by various nuclear processes. 

The giant stars explode, scattering these atoms (and everything else) across the galaxy.

While hot enough, these are atoms/ ions, not metals or compounds.

Gravity pulls the cosmic dust together, bonds form -- metalic bonds, between iron atoms for example. Compounds too. 

The mass cools, water condenses,  chemistry occurs -- bonds form. 

 

All highly non quantitative!

You'd need an explanatory model of the relative abundances, to be convincing.

Why so much NaCl, not so much KCl.

 

But, in summary: On earth, there were never lumps of pure sodium, and clouds of chlorine. 

Only a guess, mind.

 

 

 

[Bobthebuilder]

Billions of years of volcanic activity would be my best guess. Chloride and Sulphur dissolving in water making salty sea, then the process of sedimentary rock formation over the millennia?????

[The XYY Man]

In my belly button.

 

XYY

[wherebee]

5 hours ago, The XYY Man said:

In my belly button.

 

XYY

fuck.  any minute now you're going to post 'IGNORE THE SALT, WHAT ABOUT THE OIL RUNNING OUT'....

[The XYY Man]

7 hours ago, wherebee said:

fuck.  any minute now you're going to post 'IGNORE THE SALT, WHAT ABOUT THE OIL RUNNING OUT'....

No I'm not. 

Because I not a boring cunt like the rest of you broken records on here...

 

XYY

[MrPin]

Sodium and Chlorine are both highly reactive, so they pair up in the lower enegy state of NaCl.

[jm51]

All I remember from school chemistry is acid plus base equals salt plus water.

There must have been a lot of acid and a lot of base for us to end up with so much salt plus water.

[Logans Lost Finger]

My guess is it's a result of millenia of volcanic activity spewing out water soluble minerals or gases containing Na+ and Cl-.

These could then dissolve in water  and accumulate.  If that water was to evaporate, salt would naturally form as the elements react well together possibly preferably to all others.

Edited March 22 by Logans Lost Finger
The elements themselves came from space, created in stars