Russian explorers readied for an historic descent to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean under the North Pole on Wednesday as part of an expedition to claim the area for Russia, expedition organisers said.
Two Russian ships carrying the explorers, a research vessel and a nuclear ice-breaker were due to reach later on Wednesday the site from which two mini-submarines will make the descent, they said in a statement.
“According to a message from the Akademik Fyodorov, the launch of the manned deep-sea craft Mir is planned for the morning of August 2,” the Arctic and Antarctic Institute in St Petersburg said in a statement Wednesday.
The dive is believed to be the first of its kind and is part of an epic voyage that aims to advance Russian claims to a swathe of Arctic seabed thought to be rich in oil and gas.
Two Mir mini-submarines were to take the explorers, led by Parliament member Artur Chilingarov, to a depth of about 4 200m to the seabed, where they will carry out scientific tests and deposit a Russian flag.
“Having your feet reach such a depth is like taking the first step on the moon,” Chilingarov, a veteran Arctic explorer, was quoted as saying in an interview with RIA Novosti news agency.
“The Arctic-2007 mission should become a landmark in Russia’s mastery of the North Pole,” the Novye Izvestia daily wrote on Wednesday. “There is already serious talk of a new Cold War.”
Russian media reports suggested a United States expedition that set off from Norway on July 1 to study another part of the Arctic seabed, the Gakkel Ridge, was part of a race between Moscow and Washington for the Arctic’s mineral riches.
But the US expedition’s robotic vehicles were to hunt for “life and hydrothermal vents on the Arctic seafloor”, said the website of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which was organising the voyage.
The Russian expedition, which set off on July 24 from the northern Russian port of Murmansk, hopes to establish that a section of seabed passing through the North Pole is in fact an extension of Russia’s landmass.
There is growing international rivalry in the region as energy reserves grow scarce in other parts of the world and the melting of the polar ice caps makes the area more accessible for research and economic activity.
In a speech on a nuclear ice-breaker earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin urged greater efforts to secure Russia’s “strategic, economic, scientific and defence interests” in the Arctic.
But some experts warn that oil and gas reserves in the region are not large enough to offset the operational costs and difficulties of working in Arctic conditions. — AFP