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Russia on track for new Arctic bid in 2013

05 October 2010 17:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Russia will submit a well substantiated claim to oil- and gas-rich Arctic territories at the UN in 2013, famous polar explorer Artur Chilingarov said on Tuesday, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.
â€œScience and only science can prove who the Arctic shelf belongs to. This is why we are making such a strong push into the Arctic â€“ this year and next. And we are preparing to submit a claim to the UN in 2013,â€ he said.
â€œWe have revved up this work â€“ a drifting station could have been set up in the spring but we have intensified the effort in line with presidential directives.â€
The previous bid was rejected because the evidence Russia presented was based on what was deemed to be â€œsomewhat inaccurateâ€ data, he said.
Chilingarov was personally involved in the effort.
â€œWe had those flying expeditions that landed on ice to study the relief. A total of 1,000 landings were made.â€
They used modern methods and equipment to update the Arctic map, based on monitoring and observation data over the past 30 years. However, there were question marks about the â€œverifiabilityâ€ of the coordinates of some spots on the ocean floor.
â€œIndeed, much of the work was carried out at a time when there were no systems like Glonass. But now each spot, each depth measurement can be ascertained through a satellite system and is easily verifiable,â€ he said.
In 2001, Russia was the first of the five Arctic states to file a request to extend its continental shelf border beyond the standard 200-mile limit. The UN turned down the request, citing a lack of evidence to support the claim. Russia has said it will spend some 1.5 billion rubles ($50 million) to define the extent of its continental shelf in the Arctic in 2010.
Chilingarov leads a Russian polar expedition currently on board the Rossiya nuclear-powered icebreaker that will deliver the SP-38 drifting station with 15 explorers to a drifting ice floe for a year-long stint.
He indicated that the polar expedition, whose fate was in doubt over funding problems, finally received the go-ahead when it refocused to â€œscientific geopolitics.â€
The Rossiya is carrying high-tech echo sounding equipment that can â€œsee throughâ€ sediment and rock and will be delivered to the station â€œto help substantiate our claims to the Arctic Ocean and the Lomonosov Ridge,â€ said Chilingarov, who made headlines in 2007 when he led a Russian expedition that planted a flag on a contested portion of the Arctic seafloor.
Under the Convention on the Law of the Sea, UN member states can submit claims to extend their boundaries beyond a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. A country has to provide conclusive evidence that its continental shelf extends beyond that point.
The SP-38 station will have a special researcher assigned to study the relief of the ocean floor.
â€œThe shelf is all about depth measurements,â€ said Tomash Petrovsky, head of the SP-38, adding that modern maps of the ocean floor are rather inaccurate.
â€œSometimes the difference between ’mapped’ depths and real depths can be as much as 500 meters,â€ said.
There were uncharted peaks as well as peaks that were identified and given a name but later turned out to be just silt, not rock.
These data are crucial for science and can have different applications, but expedition researchers are noncommittal about the â€œgeopolitical angle.â€
â€œAs for geopolitics, we do not discuss such matters,â€ said Ilya Yagubov, SP-38 deputy chief and Rosgidromet head of the polar and maritime operations department.
â€œBut we need these data,â€ he said. â€œWe have been studying them for years and decades and it is critical to continue this research.â€
He agreed they could be used for geopolitical purposes, but the scientists’ focus is always on science.
â€œThere are still many blank spots here,â€ he said.