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The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about 85,133,000 km 2 (32,870,000 sq mi). It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area.
- 3,646 m (11,962 ft)
- Puerto Rico Trench, 8,376 m (27,480 ft)
- 310,410,900 km³ (74,471,500 cu mi)
- Overview
- Extent
- Relief of the ocean floor
Covering approximately one-fifth of Earth’s surface, the area of the Atlantic Ocean without its dependent seas is approximately 31,568,000 square miles (81,760,000 square km) and with them is about 32,870,000 square miles (85,133,000 square km).
How deep is the Atlantic Ocean?
The Atlantic Ocean has an average depth (with its seas) of 11,962 feet (3,646 meters) and a maximum depth of 27,493 feet (8,380 meters) in the Puerto Rico Trench, north of the island of Puerto Rico.
What is a major feature of the seafloor of the Atlantic Ocean?
The outstanding feature of the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an immense median mountain range extending throughout the length of the Atlantic, claiming the center third of the ocean bed and reaching roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in breadth. In some places the Mid-Atlantic Ridge reaches above sea level to form islands.
What is the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean?
Various boundaries have been used to define particularly the northern but also the southern limits of the Atlantic Ocean. There are no universally accepted boundary conventions. In the north the situation is further complicated by the fact that the Arctic Ocean frequently is considered to be a dependent sea of the Atlantic. This is because the Arctic basin—which stretches from the Bering Strait across the North Pole to Spitsbergen and Greenland—resembles a semienclosed basin (i.e., it is nearly surrounded by land, receives proportionately large volumes of river discharge and sediments, has an extensive continental margin, and is relatively shallow). In this article, however, the Arctic Ocean is considered a separate entity.
Attempts to define the open-water boundary between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans often rely on arbitrary latitude coordinates or linear transects; the two most common latitudinal boundaries are 65° N and the Arctic Circle (66°30′ N). A less arbitrary method involves drawing a line eastward from Greenland to Iceland along the shallow Greenland-Iceland Rise and from Iceland to the Faroe Islands along the Faroe-Iceland Rise and then northward from the Faroes along the relatively shallow bottom features of the Voring Plateau to the west coast of Norway at a point near 70° N. Perhaps a more appropriate method for determining this boundary is by following the division between the distinctive Arctic and Atlantic water masses: the relatively warm and saline waters of the Norwegian Sea are assigned to the Atlantic, and the cold, lower-salinity waters of the Greenland Sea to the Arctic.
The outstanding feature of the Atlantic floor is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an immense median mountain range extending throughout the length of the Atlantic, claiming the centre third of the ocean bed, and reaching roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in breadth. This feature, though of tremendous proportions, is but the Atlantic portion of the world-encircling oceanic ridge.
In some places the Mid-Atlantic Ridge reaches above sea level to form islands. Iceland, which rises from its crest, is rent by an extension of the median rift valley. East and west of the ridge, about 12,000 to 18,000 feet (3,700 to 5,500 metres) below sea level, lie basins that seem to present a relatively even profile, but parts of the basin floor are as mountainous as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, while other parts are extremely smooth. The former are rocky abyssal hills; the latter are the abyssal plains that form the upper surface of great ponds of mud that fill many of the broad depressions. Large ancient volcanoes are found singly or in rows in the basins; these rise to form seamounts and, occasionally, islands.
As the continents are approached and the rugged Mid-Atlantic Ridge is left behind, an abyssal plain first is encountered, followed by the smooth, undulating surface of the continental rise. These broad embankments, which lie at depths of some 8,000 to 15,000 feet (2,400 to 4,500 metres) at the foot of continents, reach more than 300 miles (500 km) in width off northwestern Africa, Angola, Argentina, and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. In other areas they are exceedingly narrow. Millions of years of weathering, erosion, and riverine sediment deposition have contributed to creating the sloping continental rises that are characteristic of the Atlantic basin. It is beneath these slopes—in accumulations 10,000 to 50,000 feet (3,000 to 15,000 metres) thick—that some of the largest potential reserves on Earth of petroleum, natural gas, and coal are found.
The Lesser Antilles and the South Sandwich Islands form large unstable island arcs, where the greatest depths of the Atlantic are found in steep-sided, narrow gashes that drop to more than 25,000 feet (7,600 metres) below sea level and more than 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) below the floors of adjacent basins. Depths greater than 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) occur in the Caribbean basin, which has numerous shallow and several deep connections with the open ocean, and in a few parts of the Mediterranean Sea, which communicates with the Atlantic only through the Strait of Gibraltar. The strait is about 8 miles (13 km) wide at its narrowest point, and the maximum depth on its sill (submarine ridge between basins) is only a little more than 1,000 feet (300 metres). The partial isolation of the large seas adjacent to the Mediterranean has a profound effect on the conditions in the seas themselves as well as in the open ocean.
Mar 18, 2019 · March 18, 2019. • 6 min read. For centuries the Atlantic Ocean has been a key avenue of trade and travel. Stretching from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, the Atlantic Ocean is bordered by...
- 3 min
- Sarah Gibbens
Apr 10, 2024 · Atlantic Ocean. Page last updated: April 10, 2024. Photos of Atlantic Ocean. view 47 photos. Introduction. Background. The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five ocean basins (after the Pacific Ocean, but larger than the Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Arctic Ocean).
Mar 25, 2021 · The Atlantic Ocean is the world’s second-largest Ocean after the Pacific Ocean. It covers approximately 29% of the total water surface and 20% of the Earth’s total area. The Atlantic is S-shaped and sandwiched between North and South America to the west and Africa and Europe to the east.
- John Misachi
Atlantic Ocean, Ocean separating North and South America from Europe and Africa. The second largest of the world’s oceans, the Atlantic has an area of 31,830,000 sq mi (82,440,000 sq km).
Atlantic Ocean, body of salt water covering about one-fifth of Earth’s surface and separating the continents of Europe and Africa to the east from those of North and South America to the west. Its name, derived from Greek mythology, means the ‘Sea of Atlas.’. It is second in size to the Pacific Ocean.
