Battle for sovereignty of the Arctic may be fought in scientific journals
In the midst of a Cold Waresque spy scandal involving a Canadian naval officer accused of passing secrets to a foreign entity, Canadian scientists have quietly accomplished something likely to prove far more effective than espionage or military posturing in affirming — and extending — Canada’s sovereignty in the North: They’ve published two academic studies about Arctic Ocean geology that lend solid support to the country’s ambitious claims to undersea territory in the region.
Canada’s formal bid to take possession of vast stretches of Arctic Ocean seabed isn’t due until the end of 2013, the deadline for this country’s submission to the United Nations agency responsible for approving new offshore territorial claims governed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
And under rules agreed to by all five Arctic coastal countries — Canada, Russia, the U. S., Norway and Denmark — scientific evidence compiled from decades of mapping and analyzing the Arctic sea floor will ultimately determine who controls the rich oil- and- gas deposits and other resources believed to lie below the rapidly retreating polar ice.
The peer- reviewed publication of new data bolstering Canada’s claims, says the federal government’s chief of Arctic mapping, marks a major milestone in a decade- long quest that could eventually add an area of underwater territory to Canada as big as the Prairies.
“These are the kinds of papers that analyze the new data,” says Halifax- based Natural Resources Canada geoscientist Jacob Verhoef, “and set the stage for what we think are going to be the key components of the submission.”
The scientific studies wouldn’t weave well into the plot of a spy thriller. One of them appeared in last month’s Journal of Geophysical Research and is titled: “The Crustal Structure of the Alpha Ridge at the transition to the Canadian Polar Margin: Results from a seismic refraction experiment.”
The other, appearing as a book chapter in the newly published proceedings of an international geological symposium, is titled: “Submarine Landslides in Arctic Sedimentation.”
But together with a paper published in 2009 on the bedrock connections between the North American continent and Lomonosov Ridge — an undersea mountain range reaching from Ellesmere Island and northwest Greenland to Siberia — the new studies will help underpin Canada’s claims for ownership of huge areas of ocean floor beyond the country’s continental shelves.
The case for gaining new undersea territory can be proven in one of two ways. Countries can claim seabed anywhere they can prove that the continental bedrock extends underwater from existing territory — such as the northern mainland and Arctic islands for Canada — until the sea floor drops consistently below a depth of 2,500 metres.
The other approach involves measuring offshore seabed sediment — such as the enormous deposits of silt accumulated at the bottom of the Beaufort Sea, discharged from the outlet of the Mackenzie River — and claiming continental extensions under a complex UN formula calculated from the depth of those deposits and their distance from shore.
The article on the Alpha Ridge — another drowned mountain that extends 1,700 kilometres from Canada to Russia, past the North Pole — was co- authored by Geological Survey of Canada scientists Ruth Jackson and John Shimeld and Geological Survey of Denmark scientist Thomas Funck.
Verhoef said that, as far as Canada’s claims in the Arctic go, the research showcased in the newly published papers “goes in the right direction.”