[1] Consisting of sand, mud, and silt carried to sea by rivers, their composition is usually related to their source rocks; deposition of these sediments is largely limited to the continental shelf.
[3] Terrigenous sediments are responsible for a significant amount of the salt in today's oceans.
Since chlorine and sodium are not consumed by biological processes, these two elements constitute the greatest portion of dissolved minerals.
[4] Some 1.35 billion tons, or 8% of global river-borne sediment (16.5-17 billion tons globally), is transported by Ganges-Brahmaputra river system[5] annually according to decades old studies, it is unquantified how much variance year to year as well as the impact modern humans have on this amount by holding back sediment in dams, counteracted with increased development of erosion patterns.
Wind born sediment also transports billions of tons annually, most prominent in Saharan dust, but thought to be substantially less than rivers; again, variance of year to year and human impacts of land use remain unquantified on this data.