ATLANTIC OCEAN
The Atlantic Ocean is considered a passive margin ocean with most of its geological activity centered along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Most of its coastal regions are low and geologically quiet. The Atlantic’s major marginal seas include the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. The Atlantic covers an area of 82 million square kilometres (32 million square miles). It has an average depth of 3,600 meters (11,812 feet). Its greatest depth is in the Puerto Rico Trench at 8,605 meters (28,231 feet).
Some of the current issues include - endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales; driftnet fishing is exacerbating declining fish stocks and contributing to international disputes; municipal sludge pollution off eastern U.S., southern Brazil, and eastern Argentina; oil pollution in Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo, Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea; industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-larges of the world’s oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres (41.1 million square miles). It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth’s surface. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the “Sea of Atlas”. The oldest known mention of this name is contained in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (I 202).
Another name historically used was the ancient term Ethiopic Ocean, derived from Ethiopia, whose name was sometimes used as a synonym for all of Africa and thus for the ocean. Before Europeans discovered other oceans, the term “ocean” itself was to them synonymous with the waters beyond Western Europe that we now know as the Atlantic and which the Greeks had believed to be a gigantic river encircling the World.
The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between the Americas to the west, and Eurasia and Africa to the east. A component of the all-encompassing World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean (which is sometimes considered a sea of the Atlantic), to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south. (Alternatively, in lieu of it connecting to the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic may be reckoned to extend southward to Antarctica.) The equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean but for physical purposes the division is rotated slightly counter-clockwise to a line roughly from the Bolama region, Guinea-Bissau to Rio Grande do Notre state, Brazil to include the Gulf of Guinea with the South Atlantic and the north coast of South America with the North Atlantic.
GEOGRAPHY:
The Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. In the north and northeast, it is separated from the Arctic Ocean by the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Greenland, Iceland, Jan Mayan, Svalbard, and mainland Europe. It Connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, and Barents Sea. To the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar (where it connects with the Mediterranean Sea, one of its marginal seas, and, in turn, the Black Sea), and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the border being defined by the 20 degree East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica. While some authorities show the Atlantic Ocean extending south to Antarctica, other show it as bounded at the 60 degree parallel by the Southern Ocean. In the southwest, the Drake Passage connects it to the Pacific Ocean. A man-made link between the Atlantic and Pacific is provided by the Panama Canal. Beside those mentioned, other large bodies of water adjacent to the Atlantic are the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay, the Arctic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Celtic Sea.
Covering approximately 22% of Earth’s surface, the Atlantic Ocean is second to the Pacific Ocean in size. With its adjacent seas it occupies an area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq mi); without them, it has an area of 82,400,000 square kilometres (31,800,000 sq mi). The land area that drains into the Atlantic is four times that of either the Pacific or Indian oceans. The volume of the Atlantic Ocean with its adjacent seas is 354,700,000 cubic kilometres (85,100,000 cu mi) and without them 323,600,000 cubic kilometres (77,640,000 cu mi).
The average depths of the Atlantic, with its adjacent seas, is 3,339 metres (10,936 ft); without them it is 3,926 metres (12,881 ft). The greatest depth, 8,605 metres (28,232 ft), is in the Puerto Rico Trench. The width of the Atlantic varies from 2,848 kilometres (1,770 mi) between Brazil and Sierra Leone to over 6,400 km (4,000 mi) in the south.
CLIMATE:
The climate of the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent land areas is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as the winds blowing across the waters. Because of the ocean's great capacity for retaining heat, maritime climates are more moderate and have less tendency toward extreme seasonal variations than inland climates. Precipitation can be approximated from coastal weather data and air temperature from the water temperatures. The oceans are the major source of the atmospheric moisture that is obtained through evaporation. Climatic zones vary with latitude; the warmest climatic zones stretch across the Atlantic north of the equator. The coldest zones are in the high latitudes, with the coldest regions corresponding to the areas covered by sea ice. Ocean currents contribute to climatic control by transporting warm and cold waters to other regions. Adjacent land areas are affected by the winds that are cooled or warmed when blowing over these currents. The Gulf Stream and its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, for example, warms the atmosphere of the British Isles and north-western Europe, and the cold water currents contribute to heavy fog off the coast of eastern Canada (the Grand Banks area) and the north-western coast of Africa. In general, winds tend to transport moisture and warm or cool air over land areas. Hurricanes develop in the southern part of the North Atlantic Ocean.
NATURAL RESOURCES:
Petroleum and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and Whales), sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic, nodules, precious stones.
