Atlantic Ocean Leakage/Rings, which brings salty Indian Ocean waters into the South Atlantic, and the "Atmospheric Bridge", which evaporates subtropical Atlantic waters and exports it to the Pacific. The Atlantic Ocean consists of four major, upper water masses with distinct temperature and salinity. The Atlantic Subarctic Upper Water in the northern-most North Atlantic is the source for Subarctic Intermediate Water and North Atlantic Intermediate Water. North Atlantic Central Water can be divided into the Eastern and Western North Atlantic central Water since the western part is strongly affected by the Gulf Stream and therefore the upper layer is closer to underlying fresher
Opening of the North Atlantic Ocean American plates. The ages of the earliest volcanic rocks from this plume lie in the late Paleocene, and both sides of the Atlantic Ocean contain these rocks. Since these rocks have been dated to the late Paleocene, this lines up with the time of breakup of the North Atlantic continent, so some think it could have been a contributing factor. This theory views volcanism as the resultant of lithospheric processes rather than heat from the mantle rising up. Instead of heat coming up from deep in the mantle, volcanic anomalies come from a shallow source. Volcanism thus occurs where the