I've always thought that the ocean was salty because of volanoes at the bottom of the ocean and tectonics but I never thought it would have so much to do with the watercycle itself.Apparently the ocean is salty from the following process...which you can totally read the full version( and my source for this) from HERE!
Basically, water is a wicked dissolver of stuff, it dissolves rocks, sediments and reacts with materials from volcanic eruptions. This creates a solution that is rich in salt and stays in our ocean basins in this state.
These processes can be seen as 'salt raising factors' which are continually counterbalanced by 'salt decreasing factors' like the input of fresh water from rivers, rain, precipitation and melting snow/ice.
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