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I am a climate scientist and geologist and think that climate, geology, and geography are incredibly interesting fields that people deserve to know more about. If you have any questions that you’ve sat with for a while, are just curious, want to know more about future or past scenarios, or even have worldbuilding questions, feel free to ask!
At a summer camp they had the motto Chert Hurts and I fell while running and still have a scar on my knee. My question is, do you have any Chert facts? Seems like it’s just silica and nothing special, but it does hurt.
Really appreciate your in depth answers, especially the effort post on glaciation. That was a satisfying read!
This is one of those areas where I accumulate a whole bunch of questions but can never call them back up at the right time.
How long did it take for the oceans to become salty? And which rocks get eroded and dissolved? Are the oceans going to get saltier as time goes on, or is there a sort of equilibrium in place?
There are actually competing theories about how long it took for the oceans to “get salty” after their initial formation and it is still heavily up for debate over quite a long window of time. They formed roughly 3.8 billion years ago and estimates range from nearly immediately geologically speaking (20-50 million years) to several hundred million years. Beyond that I don’t have a firm answer to give you, unfortunately.
There is a sort of equilibrium in place, though percentages have definitely fluctuated fairly significantly over time. “Significant” is of course relative, and they have fluctuated between 3.5-5%, generally declining over time. We do see the sharpest decline right after the Precambrian, which has driven theories that this may be part of what contributed to the Cambrian explosion.
Here is a pie chart showing what constitutes ocean salinity
You were mentioning elsewhere ITT how coal is an unusual or rare rock. I don't suppose halite is somewhat the same way? AFAIK it mostly forms from evaporating salt water, and would require a water cycle with a certain range of water coverage around a planet, and possibly tectonic activity.
And I would think that living cells might have a relation to it too, based on their need for a certain tonicity! Every geological cycle that living things play a part in is just so fascinating.
What do you think of Tourmaline? It's my roommates favorite rock
I think that Tournaline is not a rock, it’s a mineral 
I also think it has some of the coolest crystal structures but one of my least favorite formulas to remember in college
Were you taking courses alongside a bunch of people who were just gearing up to be oil prospectors? I had a friend in my department who had switched majors from geology, and he said that department at our university felt like a gold rush (very much in a bad way).
Yeah, petroleum engineers mostly. I get it though. They are victims too who just need to feed their families and want financial security that is rare in a lot of places that oil happens to be the primary resource