60 Fun Facts About Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic ranks where among the world's five oceans by size?

It covers about 17% of Earth's surface and roughly a quarter of its water area.

The Atlantic takes its name from which figure in Greek mythology?

Herodotus wrote of the 'Sea of Atlas' around 450 BC, meaning the waters beyond the Pillars of Hercules and the Atlas Mountains.

British and American speakers jokingly call the North Atlantic what?

The understatement dates to 1640, when Charles I's Secretary of State wrote of the 'great Pond'.

English cartographers of the Age of Discovery also called the Atlantic by what name?

The southern Atlantic was separately known as the Aethiopian Ocean until the mid-19th century.

Which line divides the Atlantic into its northern and southern halves?

The basin itself is an elongated S-shape running between Europe and Africa on one side and the Americas on the other.

Which narrow passage links the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea?

The Greeks knew it as the Pillars of Hercules, the gateway to the sea beyond.

The Atlantic–Indian Ocean dividing line runs south to Antarctica from which African headland?

The boundary follows the 20° East meridian from Africa's southernmost tip to Antarctica.

What is the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean?

It lies in the Puerto Rico Trench at 8,376 metres; the ocean's average depth is about 3,646 metres.

Who became the first person to reach the bottom of the Atlantic, in December 2018?

He dived the Puerto Rico Trench in the submersible Limiting Factor as part of his Five Deeps Expedition.

What submarine mountain range dominates the ocean's floor?

It runs from near the North Pole to Bouvet Island at 54°S and rises 2 to 3 km above the surrounding seabed.

Which 1870s scientific voyage discovered parts of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?

The rest was mapped in the 1920s by the German Meteor expedition using echo-sounding.

Which country sits directly on top of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?

The ridge's volcanoes include Eyjafjallajökull, and the island began forming about 62 million years ago over a mantle plume.

Which supercontinent's break-up opened the central Atlantic around 200 million years ago?

The rifting was triggered by the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, an eruption linked to the Triassic-Jurassic extinction.

On average, which is the saltiest of the major oceans?

Open-ocean salinity runs from 33 to 37 parts per thousand, peaking around 25° north and south where evaporation is high.

Water in the North Atlantic gyre circulates in which direction?

The Coriolis effect flips it: the South Atlantic gyre turns counter-clockwise.

Off which point on the US coast does the Gulf Stream veer north-east into open ocean?

Its northern branch, the North Atlantic Current, is what keeps north-west Europe mild in winter.

Which American statesman had the Gulf Stream charted and printed in 1769?

He forwarded the chart to the British Post Office to speed up mail ships, but British captains mostly ignored it.

Which Spanish explorer's 1512 expedition led to the European discovery of the Gulf Stream?

His log noted a current more powerful than the wind, and Spanish treasure ships soon rode it home.

The Sargasso Sea is unique among named seas for what reason?

It is defined only by currents: the Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Current, Canary Current and North Atlantic Equatorial Current.

Which creatures travel thousands of kilometres to spawn in the Sargasso Sea?

European eels migrate more than 5,000 km to get there; the currents then carry the larvae back to rivers on both sides.

Why are tropical cyclones rare in the South Atlantic?

A weak Intertropical Convergence Zone adds to the effect, while the North Atlantic gets hurricanes every summer and autumn.

Icebergs threaten shipping near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland mainly during which months?

The Grand Banks are also one of the world's richest fishing grounds, and the cold currents there breed heavy fog.

Which Norse explorer is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America?

The sagas say he founded a settlement called Vinland, roughly five centuries before Columbus.

Which explorer proved the Atlantic and Indian Oceans connect by rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1498?

Two years later Cabral, following the same route, was carried to Brazil by the South Atlantic gyre.

Which country was the last in the Americas to end the Atlantic slave trade, in 1888?

An estimated 9.5 million enslaved Africans were shipped across the ocean between the 15th century and that date.

John Cabot's 1497 voyage revealed vast stocks of which fish off Newfoundland?

So-called 'Newfoundland Currency' yielded some 200 million tons over five centuries before the fishery collapsed in the early 1990s.

Which two postwar conflicts does the Atlantic's history single out as notable military episodes?

After World War II, large naval operations in the Atlantic became rare.

The Battle of the Atlantic holds what distinction in World War II?

It ran from 1939 to Germany's defeat in 1945 and cost 3,500 merchant ships and 783 U-boats.

Which financier led the company that laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable?

He crossed the Atlantic 56 times during the project; the first message, in 1858, went from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan.

The durable 1866 transatlantic cable was laid from which giant ship?

Built by Brunel and John Scott Russell, it landed the line at Heart's Content, Newfoundland; the continents have been wired ever since.

Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic by air in 1919 in which aircraft?

They flew from Newfoundland to a bog near Clifden, Ireland, in under 16 hours and collected the Daily Mail's £10,000 prize from Winston Churchill.

Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo crossing from New York to Paris took roughly how long?

He was chasing the $25,000 Orteig Prize; two French aces had vanished attempting the reverse route two weeks earlier.

Who became the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic, in 1932?

She had already crossed as a passenger in 1928, and the 1932 flight earned her the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Which liner set the Atlantic speed record in 1952 that no passenger ship has beaten?

The Blue Riband holder was designed to double as a troopship; Mauretania's earlier record had stood for 20 years.

Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage between which two ports?

Around 1,500 of the 2,208 people aboard died after the ship struck an iceberg on 15 April 1912.

Titanic was built by Harland and Wolff in which city?

She was the second of three Olympic-class liners, between Olympic and Britannic.

The Bermuda Triangle is roughly bounded by Florida, Bermuda and where?

Vincent Gaddis coined the name in a 1964 Argosy article; official investigations have found nothing unusual about the region.

Which group of US Navy aircraft lost in December 1945 is the Bermuda Triangle's most famous case?

The five torpedo bombers vanished on a training mission; a magazine later quoted the leader saying 'the ocean doesn't look as it should'.

The wreck of which ship on Bermuda's reef in 1609 led to the island's settlement?

Everyone aboard survived, and the colony was later renamed the Somers Isles after Sir George Somers.

Napoleon spent his final exile, from 1815 until his death, on which South Atlantic island?

The Portuguese had sighted the island in 1502; its capital Jamestown was named for the future James II.

Which South Atlantic island is considered the remotest inhabited place on Earth?

Its only settlement is Edinburgh of the Seven Seas; the neighbouring Gough and Inaccessible Islands are wildlife reserves.

In which year did Cape Verde gain independence from Portugal?

The islands were uninhabited until Portuguese explorers arrived in the 15th century; the capital Praia is on Santiago island.

What is the capital of Bermuda?

The territory is split into nine parishes and, with around 64,000 people, is the second most populous of Britain's overseas territories.

Besides Europe and Africa, which continent do the Atlantic's Mediterranean and Black Seas also touch?

Counting such marginal seas, the Atlantic's coastline measures about 111,866 km against the Pacific's 135,663 km.

The closure of which ocean passage 2.8 million years ago split Atlantic and Pacific marine life apart?

The rise of the Isthmus of Panama caused a 'Great American Interchange' of land animals but a 'Great American Schism' in the sea.

In one far-future theory, the Pacific closes to form which supercontinent?

Aurica is the rival hypothesis in which both the Atlantic and Pacific close.

Above the equator, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge's rift valley separates which two tectonic plates?

The North American and Eurasian plates diverge there; farther south the ridge separates the South American and African plates.

Roughly what share of Earth's surface does the Atlantic Ocean cover?

That works out to about 24% of the planet's water surface, across some 85 million square kilometres.

Early Greek sailors believed the Atlantic was part of what great sea or river said to encircle all land?

The idea appears in the Iliad and Odyssey, in contrast to the enclosed seas the Greeks knew well.

Which rich fishing shoal lies off Cape Cod?

Other rich Atlantic grounds include the Bahama Banks, the waters around Iceland and the Irish Sea.

In which deep, one of the Atlantic's few active-margin features, does the ocean's lowest point lie?

It plunges to 8,376 metres; most of the Atlantic is ringed by passive margins without trenches.

By what nickname were the vast cod stocks John Cabot found in 1497 known?

He was the first Western European since the Vikings to explore mainland North America.

Which species is the most important catch in the southwest Atlantic fishery?

Landings reached half a million tons in 2013, about half the peak value.

Which predator, with algae-like appendages, hovers motionless among the seaweed of the Sargasso Sea?

Fossils of similar fishes turn up in ancient bays of the Tethys Ocean, in what is now the Carpathians.

The eruption of which large igneous zone initiated both Pangaea's break-up and the ocean's opening?

It ranks among the most extensive and voluminous large igneous provinces on Earth.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs from near the North Pole south to which subantarctic outcrop at 54°S?

Its northern end sits at 87°N, only 300 km from the pole.

In which year was contact lost with the Norse settlement on Greenland?

The colony, founded before 1000 CE, was finally abandoned during the early Little Ice Age.

The Azores–Gibraltar transform fault marks the boundary between the Eurasian plate and which other?

It meets the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the Azores triple junction near 40°N.

Which two submarine features form barriers to ocean currents in the South Atlantic?

On the North American side, carbonate platforms like the Blake Plateau and Bermuda Rise dominate instead.

Which Greek poet of the mid-6th century BC gives the oldest known mention of an 'Atlantic sea'?

Herodotus used the term around 450 BC; the name means 'Sea of Atlas'.