Russia claims the Arctic Seabed

Russian Subs Reach North Pole Seabed
By DOUGLAS BIRCH Associated Press Writer
9:54 AM EDT, August 2, 2007





AP/NTV Channel,

A Russian miniature submarine is lowered from the research vessel Akademik Fyodorov moments before performing a dive in the Arctic Ocean beneath the ice at the North Pole in this image made from television broadcast on Aug. 2. Russian scientists hope to plunge to the seabed beneath the North Pole in the next few days in a miniature sub and plant a titanium capsule containing the Russian flag, symbolically claiming much of the Arctic Ocean floor for Moscow.
MOSCOW - Two deep-diving Russian mini-submarines slipped beneath the ice at the North pole and descended more than 2 1/2 miles to the ocean floor Thursday on a Russian quest to claim much of the Arctic's oil-and-mineral wealth. Expedition leader Artur Chilingarov, who was aboard the MIR 1 three-person sub, told colleagues on a research ship on the surface that his craft had reached the seabed. "The landing was smooth, the yellowish ground is around us, no sea dwellers are seen," he said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The voyage has some scientific goals, including studies of the climate, geology and biology of the polar region. But its chief aim appears to be to advancing Russia's political and economic influence by strengthening its legal claims to the Arctic. The crews of the MIR 1 and MIR 2 are engaged in what Russian authorities called the first dive to the ocean floor at Earth's northernmost point. The crew of the MIR 1 planned to drop a titanium capsule containing the nation's flag on the bottom, symbolically claiming almost half of the planet's northern polar region for Moscow. Chilingarov, 68, a famed polar scientist, spoke of the danger of the expedition on Russia's NTV television before boarding. "I am scared and I don't hide it," he said.

The subs began the eight-hour plunge later than expected, and were expected to return to the surface and the research ship Akademik Fyodorov late Thursday. They planned to spend several hours in the murky depths conducting a study of the water chemistry and geology near the seabed at the pole, according to Russia's Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic, which organized the expedition. Expedition members say the biggest challenge for the sub crews will be to find their way back to an opening in the 5-foot thick polar pack ice after their dive. Russian scientists planned to map part of the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. The ridge was discovered by the Soviets in 1948 and named after a famed 18th-century Russian scientist, Mikhail Lomonosov. In December 2001, Moscow claimed that the ridge was an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia's continental shelf under international law. The U.N. rejected Moscow's application, citing lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009. If recognized, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles -- almost half of the Arctic seabed. Little is known about the ocean floor near the pole, but by some estimates it could contain vast oil and gas deposits. Before Thursday's dives, researchers mapped the location of natural openings in the polar ice. The icebreaker Rossiya spent most of Wednesday night and Thursday morning carving a 400x30 foot artificial opening near the pole, RTR television reported. The Russian expedition leader, Chilingarov, became a hero of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, after leading an expedition aboard a research vessel trapped in Antarctic sea ice. He descended with two crewmates, Anatoly Sagalevich, the pilot, and Vladimir Gruzdev. Before the dive, Gruzdev joked about what the submarines might find, Russia's Channel One reported. "And what if we encounter Atlantis there?" Gruzdev said. "Nobody knows what is there. We must use the opportunity given to us 100 percent." The MIR 2's crew includes Michael McDowell, an Australian described by the ITAR-Tass news agency as a polar explorer, and Frederik Paulsen, a Swedish pharmaceuticals millionaire described as a co-sponsor of the dive. The deepest dive on record, according to several sources, was by the bathyscaphe Trieste, which in January 1960 descended 35,810 feet into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. In the coming weeks, expedition researchers plan to set up an Arctic research camp near the pole, called a "drift station" because it will drift with the shifting ice pack in the polar sea, to carry out long-range climate studies.

The scientific ship Akademik Fyodorov is expected to remain in the region until mid-September. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said, "We wish the Russian scientists a safe expedition." The U.S. Senate has not yet ratified U.S. accession to the U.N. Law of the Sea, which would give Washington a seat on the panel that will consider and eventually rule on the Russian Arctic seabed claim. Phillips said the Bush administration would continue to press hard for ratification in order to give the United States a voice on that commission.