As icecaps melt, Russia races for Arctic's resources

[babylonsister]

As icecaps melt, Russia races for Arctic's resources
This week, it stakes territory in an internationally administered area said to contain vast oil and gas reserves.
By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 31, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 3
Correspondent Fred Weir talks about Russia's claim to arctic territory believed to contain vast energy reserves.

Moscow - Call it the global warming sweepstakes.

As milder temperatures make exploration of the Arctic sea floor possible for the first time, Russia's biggest-ever research expedition to the region is steaming toward the immense scientific prestige of being the first to explore the seabed of the world's crown.

In the next few days, two manned minisubs will be launched through a hole blasted in the polar ice to scour the ocean floor nearly three miles below. They will gather rock samples and plant a titanium Russian flag to symbolize Moscow's claim over 460,000 square miles of hitherto international territory – an area bigger than France and Germany combined in a region estimated to contain a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

The issue of who owns the North Pole, now administered by the International Seabed Authority, has long been regarded as academic since the entire region is locked in year-round impenetrable ice. But with global warming thinning the icecaps, the question has vaulted to the front burner.

"The No. 1 reason for the urgency about this is global warming, which makes it likely that a very large part of the Arctic will become open to economic exploitation in coming decades," says Alexei Maleshenko, an expert with the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "The race for the North Pole is becoming very exciting." The US Geological Survey estimates that 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves lie beneath the Arctic Ocean. Experts at the Russian Institute of Oceanology calculate that the saddle-shaped territory that Russia is planning to claim may contain up to 10 billion tons of petroleum, plus other mineral resources and vast, untapped fishing stocks.

more...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0731/p01s01-woeu.html

[mainegreen]

1. Of course the Lomonosov ridge goes all the way across to Canada and Greenland.

So by the same tortured logic could Denmark claim EEZ all the way to Siberia?
:rofl:

[whistle]

2. Russian territory occupies at least 50% of the coast line along the Arctic Ocean

...and they have hundreds of Islands long buried under ice and snow. So I would think by international law Russia has a right to claim what belongs to them.

<snip>
At a glance

Lomonosov Ridge
The Lomonosov Ridge is a 1,240-mile underwater mountain ridge that crosses the polar region and connects Russia and Greenland. Russian scientists are looking for evidence that it is a geologic extension of Russia and can be claimed by Russia under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

<MORE>

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=201980

[jdlh8894]

4. Greenland

The Northern tip (land mass) is actually the closest to the North Pole.So, shouldn't they have the rights to anything that is found or mined there?

[xultar]

3. We'd have been prepared if our Resident n Thief believed in global warming.