Salt vs Fresh Water visibility

[RANGER]

I had asked this earlier in the year and there were few responses. It was during the Summer and not a lot of activity on the Board. Can someone explain this to me, please?:

Why can you see further underwater in salt water than you can in fresh?

Given that vast areas of the Great Lakes, now, and a number of inland lakes are considered "Gin Clear" you can only see, at most, about a hundred feet or so. In the ocean, like around the Barrier Reef, Bahamas, Cancun, etc. You can see for hundreds of YARDS? It baffels me as to why, especially when salt water has an automatically added ingredient - salt??

Any ideas?

[Schnauzer]

Fresh water tends to be much more fertile than salt water. Fresh water has many more microscopic critters (algae, plankton, etc.) per unit of volume compared to the much more barren salt water. Individually, you can't see this stuff but together - it IS water clarity. Fresh water tends to have more suspended sediment in it too.

[RANGER]

Thank you for the reply. I have taken that into consideration but I must take into account the ecosystem of the ocean, too. Here you have an ecological environment that is vast and diverse, far more (I believe) complex then the fresh, having everything from phytoplankton to whales and everything in between. I will admit that I haven't put sea water under a microscope and did a comparison with fresh but I would have to think that both have to be full of nutrients/sediments to support the ecosystem. I appreciate what you have said but I still wonder..................? Take, for instance, a well maintained swimming pool. If I dive, with a divemask, in a pool I am pressed to see the other end of an Olympic class pool compared to a shark 250 yards away. Do you see why I am confused?