About our Atlantic Ocean news
Latest news on the Atlantic Ocean, the second-largest ocean on Earth, covering about one-fifth of the Earth's surface and separating the continents of Europe and Africa to the east from those of North and South America to the west. The ocean's name, derived from Greek mythology, means the 'Sea of Atlas'. It has a surface area of about 31,830,000 square kilometers (82,440,000 square miles) without its dependent seas, and about 41,100,000 square kilometers (106,450,000 square miles) with them. It has an average depth of about 3,330 meters (10,925 feet) and a maximum depth of 8,380 meters (27,493 feet) in the Puerto Rico Trench.
The Atlantic Ocean is divided into two major parts by the equator: the North Atlantic Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean. It can also be divided into four quadrants by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge: the Northeast Atlantic, the Northwest Atlantic, the Southeast Atlantic, and the Southwest Atlantic. The Atlantic Ocean has many marginal seas, such as the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and Baffin Bay, Hudson Bay, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea to the west. The Atlantic Ocean is also part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of currents that transports heat and salt across the ocean basin.
The Atlantic Ocean was named by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, who called it Mar Océano Atlántico, meaning 'Ocean Sea of Atlas'. The Atlantic Ocean was first explored by Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries, and later by other nations in the 17th and 18th centuries.
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