My OperaLomonosov Ridge
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 9:38:11 AM
Geoeconomics and Science
For the time being the media are full of headings like:
“A U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker is headed to the Arctic to map the sea floor off Alaska, as Russia, Denmark and Canada assert their claims in the polar region, which has potential oil and gas reserves.” - “Canada will build its first Arctic deep-sea port to bolster its disputed claims to the famed Northwest Passage and Arctic seabed, believed to hold oil and gas riches” - “A Danish-led expedition is searching for geological evidence to prove that an underwater oceanic ridge in the Arctic belongs to Denmark” - “Russian explorers have planted their country's flag on the seabed 4,200m below the North Pole to further Moscow's claims to the Arctic”.
I would like to stress, that all the fuzz is not only about national territories, energy resources and potential pollution. It is also to a large extent a question of science. Much of the research going on in the arctic area for the time being is related to the current Polar year. The International Polar Year is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. In some of my posts I have already reported on some of this research, and more will undoubtedly follow.
Admittedly politics and geoeconomics are also playing an important role and being an incentive for some countries to put a lot of money into Arctic research. Since 1997 the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea has limited the control of the five countries bordering the Arctic — Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark — to economic zones extending to about 320 kilometres from their coasts. None of these zones currently reaches as far as the North Pole. The law allows, however, that a country can extend its economic zone if it can prove that the Arctic seafloor’s underwater ridges are not a separate feature, but a geological extension of the country’s own continental shelf.
Mapping plays an important role and with the thawing and thinning of Arctic ice, mapping is becoming easier, but not without problems.
The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO), initiated in 1997, has developed a digital data base that contains all available bathymetric data north of 64 degrees North, for use by mapmakers, researchers, and others whose work requires a detailed and accurate knowledge of the depth and the shape of the Arctic seabed. Below is part of a so-called bathymetric map (“sea depth map”) produced by IBCAO.
The territorial claims are mainly related to the Lomonosov Ridge. The Lomonosov ridge is a narrow band of continental crust (and not a spreading ridge like the Gakkel Ridge, that divides the continents Eurasia and North America from each other). About 50 million years ago the ridge was ripped away from the outer part of the continental margin of Eurasia. A team of German scientists, found that the ridge becomes deeper as it approaches Siberia, with a lot of faulting in the deeper sediments, that suggest that even if the ridge is currently attached to the Siberian shelf, prior to about 10 million years ago it may not have been part of the shelf at all, or was at least partially disconnected. some scientists hypothesise that the Lomonosov Ridge came from a different part of the Eurasian shelf originally, and is actually a sliver of shelf that long ago became cut off from its earlier location by faulting and rifting. The piece of shelf may then have slid for several hundred kilometres along a transform fault until it reached its current location on the Siberian shelf.
Some scientists believe Denmark and Russia are both wrong about the ridge, suggesting that a deep trough may separate the ridge from the two countries' respective continental shelves.
I don’t hope that the Arctic Ocean will be polluted by oil production platforms in the near future, but I do hope that we will see a lot great science ultimately helping us in saving the environment, solving some of the burning climate change questions, and safeguarding a healthy future for mankind.
(just to mention a few)
For the time being the media are full of headings like:
“A U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker is headed to the Arctic to map the sea floor off Alaska, as Russia, Denmark and Canada assert their claims in the polar region, which has potential oil and gas reserves.” - “Canada will build its first Arctic deep-sea port to bolster its disputed claims to the famed Northwest Passage and Arctic seabed, believed to hold oil and gas riches” - “A Danish-led expedition is searching for geological evidence to prove that an underwater oceanic ridge in the Arctic belongs to Denmark” - “Russian explorers have planted their country's flag on the seabed 4,200m below the North Pole to further Moscow's claims to the Arctic”.
I would like to stress, that all the fuzz is not only about national territories, energy resources and potential pollution. It is also to a large extent a question of science. Much of the research going on in the arctic area for the time being is related to the current Polar year. The International Polar Year is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. In some of my posts I have already reported on some of this research, and more will undoubtedly follow.
Admittedly politics and geoeconomics are also playing an important role and being an incentive for some countries to put a lot of money into Arctic research. Since 1997 the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea has limited the control of the five countries bordering the Arctic — Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark — to economic zones extending to about 320 kilometres from their coasts. None of these zones currently reaches as far as the North Pole. The law allows, however, that a country can extend its economic zone if it can prove that the Arctic seafloor’s underwater ridges are not a separate feature, but a geological extension of the country’s own continental shelf.
Mapping plays an important role and with the thawing and thinning of Arctic ice, mapping is becoming easier, but not without problems.
The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO), initiated in 1997, has developed a digital data base that contains all available bathymetric data north of 64 degrees North, for use by mapmakers, researchers, and others whose work requires a detailed and accurate knowledge of the depth and the shape of the Arctic seabed. Below is part of a so-called bathymetric map (“sea depth map”) produced by IBCAO.
The territorial claims are mainly related to the Lomonosov Ridge. The Lomonosov ridge is a narrow band of continental crust (and not a spreading ridge like the Gakkel Ridge, that divides the continents Eurasia and North America from each other). About 50 million years ago the ridge was ripped away from the outer part of the continental margin of Eurasia. A team of German scientists, found that the ridge becomes deeper as it approaches Siberia, with a lot of faulting in the deeper sediments, that suggest that even if the ridge is currently attached to the Siberian shelf, prior to about 10 million years ago it may not have been part of the shelf at all, or was at least partially disconnected. some scientists hypothesise that the Lomonosov Ridge came from a different part of the Eurasian shelf originally, and is actually a sliver of shelf that long ago became cut off from its earlier location by faulting and rifting. The piece of shelf may then have slid for several hundred kilometres along a transform fault until it reached its current location on the Siberian shelf.
Some scientists believe Denmark and Russia are both wrong about the ridge, suggesting that a deep trough may separate the ridge from the two countries' respective continental shelves.
I don’t hope that the Arctic Ocean will be polluted by oil production platforms in the near future, but I do hope that we will see a lot great science ultimately helping us in saving the environment, solving some of the burning climate change questions, and safeguarding a healthy future for mankind.
- http://www.geotimes.org/aug07/article.html?id=WebExtra080107.html
- http://a76.dk/expeditions_uk/lorita-1_uk/
- http://www.terradaily.com/reports/070810184641.v7k15r3c.html
- http://www.physorg.com/news106018859.html
- http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/12/2002814.htm?section=business
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6927395.stm
- http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/bathymetry/arctic/arctic.html
(just to mention a few)
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