VoyageaimstoclaimArcticseabed

Voyage aims to claim Arctic sea bed

Updated: 2007-08-02 07:26

An expedition aimed at strengthening Russia's claim to much of the Arctic

Ocean region reached the North Pole yesterday afternoon, as preparations began

for two mini-submarines to drop a capsule containing a Russian flag to the sea

floor, a spokesman said.

The Rossiya atomic icebreaker had plowed a path to the

pole through an unbroken sheet of multiyear ice, clearing the way for the

Akademik Fedorov research ship to follow behind, said Sergei Balyasnikov a

spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic research institute that prepared the

expedition.

The voyage, led by noted polar explorer and Russian legislator Artur

Chilingarov, has some scientific goals, including the study of Arctic plants and

animals. But its chief aim appears to be to advance Russia's political and

economic influence by strengthening its legal claims to the gas and oil deposits

thought to lie beneath the Arctic sea floor.

"I think that one of the tasks, at least for public consumption, is to put a

claim and enlarge our territory by achieving the recognition of the Arctic shelf

as a continuation of Russia's Eurasian part," Sergei Pryamikov, director of the

international department of the St. Petersburg-based institute, told Russia's

RTR Television.

In the coming hours, Russian scientists hope to dive in two mini-submarines

beneath the pole to a depth of more than 4,000 meters, and drop a metal capsule

containing the Russian flag on the sea bed. Balyasnikov said the dive was

expected to start this morning and last for several hours.

"For the first time in history people will go down to the sea bed under the

North Pole," Balyasnikov said. "It's like putting flag on the moon."

The symbolic gesture, along with geologic data being gathered by expedition

scientists, is intended to prop up Moscow's claims to more than 1.2 million

square kilometers of the Arctic shelf - which by some estimates may contain 10

billion tons of oil and gas deposits.

The expedition reflects an intense rivalry between Russia, the United States,

Canada and other nations whose shores face the northern polar ocean for the

Arctic's icebound riches.

About 100 scientists aboard the Akademik Fyodorov are looking for evidence

that the Lomonosov Ridge - a 1,995-kilometer underwater mountain range that

crosses the polar region - is a geologic extension of Russia, and therefore can

be claimed by it under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The subs will collect specimens of Arctic plants and animals and videotape

the dives.

The biggest challenge, scientists say, will be for the mini-sub crews to

return to their original point of departure to avoid being trapped under a thick

ice crust. "They have all the necessary navigation equipment to ensure safety,"

Balyasnikov said.

Agencies

(China Daily 08/02/2007 page8)

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