Claim: Ireland exists on the planet Earth.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world 's oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 km2 . 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 -LRB- other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica -RRB- . The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and 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 .