The highlight of this Arctic expedition of Russia is to prove that underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges represent the outline of its continental shelf.
Photo: Olga Chumachenko
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Russia Puts Flag to Claim Arctic Shelf
“Once explorers reach some point previously explored by no one, they do leave flags. The same happened in the Moon, by the way,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced when commenting on Russia’s polar expedition that planted the state flag at the North Pole in a seabed.
An owner of the North Pole’s shelf is being determined under the Law of Sea Convention, Lavrov said, emphasizing that nobody would leave flags for no reason.
“As to the legal aspect of the case, this expedition is a part of a big work carried out under the Law of the Sea Convention,” Lavrov said.
First time in history, Russia’s Mir-1 and Mir-2 bathyscaphes dived yesterday as deep as 4,261 meters and 4,302 meters, spending roughly an hour there, while the overall time of the dive exceeded eight hours.
During the dive, the explorers took samples of seabed soil and fauna, put a flag of Russia and left a capsule with message.
One of the targets of this scientific expedition of Russia is to prove that underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges represent the outline of its continental shelf.
This method of staking a claim in the Arctic, which melting ice makes its crude oil and gas wealth more and more lucrative, has been predictably criticized by competitors. Canada that ratified the Law of the Sea Convention called it the practice of 15th century.
Today’s concern of Ottawa is to defend its sovereignty for Arctic soil and water. According to Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay, it isn’t the 15th century now and you cannot go around the world, put flags and say it is our territory.
The United States that even isn’t a member of the Law of the Sea Convention rushed to make critical comments. “I don’t think that under the Law of the Sea Treaty and certainly, not under the commission that’s reviewing this, you know, whether they went and spray-painted a flag of Russia on those particular ridges is going to make one iota of difference in terms of the technical evaluation,” said the U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
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