Russia symbolically staked its claim to billions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the Arctic Ocean on Thursday as two mini-submarines reached the sea bed four kilometres beneath the North Pole.
In a record-breaking dive the two craft planted a one metre-high titanium Russian flag on the underwater Lomonosov ridge, which Moscow claims is directly connected to its continental shelf.
But the dangerous mission prompted ridicule and scepticism among other contenders for the Arctic’s energy wealth, with Canada comparing it to a 15th-century colonial land-grab.
Descending to 4 300m, the mini-subs Mir-1 and Mir-2 collected water and sediment samples from the sea bed that Russian scientists hope will shore up their claim that the ridge is an integral part of their country.
If Russia’s claim is approved by the United Nations it could gain rights over supplies of hydrocarbons that some experts put at 10-billion tonnes. The ice cap is melting, making exploration and drilling for oil and gas easier.
Speaking from the three-person Mir-1 on the ocean floor to colleagues aboard the research ship Akademik Fyodorov, the expedition’s leader, Artur Chilingarov, said it had been a ”soft landing”.
”There is yellowish gravel down here. No creatures of the deep are visible,” he added. Shortly before the dive, Chilingarov (68) a veteran polar explorer, told reporters his mission was to prove ”the Arctic is Russian”.
Russian state television trumpeted the successful dive, saying Russia could soon lay claim to 736 000 square kilometres of underwater territory.
Speaking on the sidelines of talks in Manila, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said: ”I think the expedition will allow us to get the extra scientific proof for what we are planning to achieve.”
Moscow’s stance riled other northern hemisphere countries with their own claims to waters around the North Pole.
”This isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say, we’re claiming this territory,” the Canadian Foreign Minister, Peter MacKay, told CTV television. He predicted the Russian expedition would not bear fruit. ”There is no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic … we’re not at all concerned about this mission. Basically it’s just a show by Russia.”
Under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, the five states with territory inside the Arctic Circle — Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States, and Denmark via its control of Greenland — have economic rights over a 320km zone around the north of their coastline.
However the convention is open to appeal and several countries are disputing the limits of this zone. Russia believes that its Siberian shelf is directly linked to the Lomonosov ridge, an underwater mountain crest that runs 1 984km across the polar region. In 2001 Moscow submitted research findings to that effect to the UN but they were rejected and it is expected to resubmit its claim in 2009.
Kim Holmen, research director of the governmental Norwegian Polar Institute, told the Guardian that Russia’s confidence could be misplaced. Asked if sediment samples from the ocean bed could prove the Lomonosov ridge and the Russian continental shelf were one and the same, he said: ”In the geological sense, yes, but in the cartographic and political sense, no.
”The United States and Europe were at one time connected, the Appalachians and the Scottish mountains are the same geological formation, but Scotland cannot claim the United States is part of its territory because of that.”
Holmen added: ”These samples cannot prove once and for all that the whole discussion is over.” Depth soundings and other data would also be needed to stake a claim, he said.
But the sceptics held no sway in Russia as the country swelled with national pride. ”This is a serious, risky and heroic mission,” Sergei Balyasnikov, a spokesperson for the Arctic and Antarctic Institute, said. ”It’s a very important move for Russia to demonstrate its potential in the Arctic. It’s like putting a flag on the moon.”
Mir-1 had returned safely to the surface on Thursday night, having been lowered by derrick into freezing waters cleared by the icebreaker Rossiya. Mir-2 was expected to appear shortly afterwards. – Guardian Unlimited Â