Gulf Stream thermal energy could also be harnessed to produce electricity using the temperature difference between cold deep water and warm surface water. Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and stretches to the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a northward accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about , it splits
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