Earth's Oceans

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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceans with a total area of
about 106,460,000 square kilometers (41,100,000 square miles).[2][3] It covers
approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water
surface area. It separates the "Old World" from the "New World".

The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally

between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one
component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the
Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the
southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the
Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Equatorial Counter Current
subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean at about
8°N.

Scientific explorations of the Atlantic include the Challenger expedition, the

German Meteor expedition, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
and the United States Navy Hydrographic Office.

The oldest known mentions of an "Atlantic" sea come from Stesichorus around mid-
sixth century BC (Sch. A. R. 1. 211):[6] Atlantikoi pelágei (Greek: Ἀτλαντικῷ
πελάγει; English: 'the Atlantic sea'; etym. 'Sea of Atlantis') and in The Histories
of Herodotus around 450 BC (Hdt. 1.202.4): Atlantis thalassa (Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς
θάλασσα; English: 'Sea of Atlantis' or 'the Atlantis sea'[7]) where the name refers
to "the sea beyond the pillars of Heracles" which is said to be part of the ocean
that surrounds all land.[8] Thus, on one hand, the name refers to Atlas, the Titan
in Greek mythology, who supported the heavens and who later appeared as a
frontispiece in Medieval maps and also lent his name to modern atlases.[9] On the
other hand, to early Greek sailors and in Ancient Greek mythological literature
such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, this all-encompassing ocean was instead known as
Oceanus, the gigantic river that encircled the world; in contrast to the enclosed
seas well-known to the Greeks: the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.[10] In
contrast, the term "Atlantic" originally referred specifically to the Atlas
Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African
coast.[9] The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge
Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of million
years ago.

The term "Aethiopian Ocean", derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the
Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century.[11] During the Age of Discovery,
the Atlantic was also known to English cartographers as the Great Western Ocean.