There was a time long ago when the Atlantic Ocean didn’t exist. According to geologists at the UK’s Heriot Watt University, gigantic waves of mud and sand sediment about 250 miles off the coast of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa indicate the Atlantic Ocean actually formed around four million years earlier than previous estimates. These waves initially formed as dense, salty water poured out from the newly created Equatorial Atlantic Gateway, “like a giant waterfall that formed below the ocean surface,” he added. Just before the geologic event, huge salt deposits formed at the bottom of what is now the South Atlantic. After the gateway opened, the underground mudfall occurred when dense, relatively fresh Central Atlantic water in the north combined with very salty waters in the south.