雅思听力材料：大西洋(BBC纪录片)

　　Atlantic Ocean

　　The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the worlds oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres , it covers approximately 20 percent of theEarths surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers toAtlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the Sea of Atlas.

　　The oldest known mention of Atlantic is in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC :Atlantis thalassa . The term Ethiopic Ocean, derived from Ethiopia, was applied to the southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century.Before Europeans discovered other oceans, the term ocean itself was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar that we now know as the Atlantic. The early Greeks believed this ocean to be a gigantic river encircling the world.

　　The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia andAfrica 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 theSouthern Ocean in the south. The equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.