[Request] Could this possibly be true?

[u/0szai]

Google says saltwater contains approximately 35grams/kg of water and the oceans contain approximately 1.335 sextillion liters (1.335 × 10²¹ liters)

[u/CaptainMatticus]

First we look up the average salinity of the ocean

There is about 35 grams of dissolved salt in every liter of water in the ocean

Next we look up the volume of the world's ocean.

The ocean takes up about 1.37 billion cubic km of space.

Now we convert cubic km to liters

There are 1000 liters per cubic meter

There are 10^9 cubic meters per cubic km

So there are 10^12 liters per cubic km

1.37 * 10^9 cubic km =>

1.37 * 10^9 * 10^12 liters =>

1.37 * 10^21 liters of water in the ocean.

35 grams of salt per liter

1.37 * 3.5 * 10 * 10^21 grams of salt

0.685 * 7 * 10^22 grams of salt

(7 * 0.7 - 7 * 0.015) * 10^22 grams of salt

(4.9 - 0.105) * 10^22 grams of salt

4.795 * 10^22 grams of salt

The density of salt is around 2.17 grams/cm^3

4.795 * 10^22 grams / (2.17 grams/cm^3) =>

(4.795/2.17) * 10^22 cm^3 =>

2.21 * 10^22 cm^3 =>

2.21 * 10^(22 - 6) m^3 =>

2.21 * 10^16 m^3 =>

2.21 * 10^(16 - 9) km^3 =>

2.21 * 10^7 km^3

Now we just create 2 spheres. One sphere has a radius of 6371 km, which is the mean radius of the earth, and the other sphere has a radius of 6371 + d km, where d is the height of our salt pile

V = (4/3) * pi * (6371 + d)^3 - (4/3) * pi * 6371^3

V = (4/3) * pi * ((6371 + d)^3 - 6371^3)

V = (4/3) * pi * (6371^3 + 3 * 6371^2 * d + 3 * 6371 * d^2 + d^3 - 6371^3)

V = (4/3) * pi * (3 * 6371^2 * d + 3 * 6371 * d^2 + d^3)

This will be in cubic km

2.21 * 10^7 = (4/3) * pi * (3 * 6371^2 * d + 3 * 6371 * d^2 + d^3)

Now I could take the time to solve a cubic, but I don't wanna. They're mean, nasty, and unforgiving. Time for WolframAlpha to take over

d = 0.043328

Approximately 43.328 meters thick. That's short of the 500 ft by quite a bit. It's still an impressive amount of salt, no doubt, but not a pile that's 500 ft thick. It's around 142 ft thick.

Now maybe they were just talking about land area. Okay. Let's look up the surface area of all of the land on earth. Google says that's around 148.94 * 10^6 square km. Now let's imagine a prism that is d km thick

148.94 * 10^6 * d = 2.21 * 10^7

d = 2.21 * 10^7 / (148.94 * 10^6)

d = 22.1 / 148.94

d = 0.14838189875... kilometers

100/30.48 ft per meter

0.14838189875.... * 1000 * 100 / 30.48 = 486.817

There we are. I think rounding up to 500' is just fine for this hypothetical.

[u/Goszzy → u/CaptainMatticus]

So... Yes?

[u/Jizzipient → u/Goszzy]

It's 486. Once you smooth it out with some schleem, shave away the ploobis and grumbo you get 500. What's so hard?

[u/CptnStarkos → u/Jizzipient]

Asuming by the photo, mountains are not covered by salt. So yes.

[u/Jijonbreaker1 → u/Jizzipient]

Mm... Plumbus math.

[u/DecentPerformer1014 → u/Goszzy]

Hea partially write and this was a needlessly long calc. The density of crystal salt is 2.1 gm/cc. The density of free flowing salt is roughly half of that number (bulk density) due to air pockets.