Timothy Gardner, Reuters 12 Aug 08;
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Coast Guard cutter will embark on an Arctic voyage this week to determine the extent of the continental shelf north of Alaska and map the ocean floor, data that could be used for oil and natural gas exploration.
U.S. and University of New Hampshire scientists on the Coast Guard Cutter Healy will leave Barrow, Alaska, on Thursday on a three-week journey. They will create a three-dimensional map of the Arctic Ocean floor in a relatively unexplored area known as the Chukchi borderland.
The Healy will launch again on September 6, when it will be joined by Canadian scientists aboard an icebreaker, who will help collect data to determine the thickness of sediment in the region. That is one factor a country can use to define its extended continental shelf.
With oil at $114 a barrel, after hitting a record $147 in July, and sea ice melting fast, countries like Russia and the United States are looking north for possible energy riches.
"These are places nobody's gone before, in essence, so this is a first step," said Margaret Hays, the director of the oceanic affairs office at the U.S. State Department. She said the data collected may provide information to the public about future oil and natural gas sources for the United States.
This will be the fourth year that the United States has collected data to define the limits of its continental shelf in the Arctic.
Russia, which has claimed 460,000 square miles of Arctic waters, last summer planted its flag on the ocean floor of the North Pole.
Hays said the Alaskan continental shelf may lie up to 600 nautical miles from the coastline, far beyond the 200-mile (322-km) limit where coastal countries have sovereign rights over natural resources.
The research could also shed light on other potential energy resources, like methane frozen in ice under the ocean, that Hays said might one day have some commercial interest.
Larry Mayer, a university scientist, said melting sea ice, presumably from global warming, helped last year's mission. "It was bad for the Arctic, but very very good for mapping."
Arctic cold war as US sends a ship to claim riches under the ocean
Tim Reid, Times Online 13 Aug 08;
A US Coast Guard cutter will depart for the Arctic this week as part of a race against Russia to claim the vast spoils of oil and natural gas below the sea floor that both nations are scrambling to exploit.
The cutter Healy will leave Barrow, Alaska, tomorrow on a three-week journey to map the Arctic Ocean floor in a relatively unexplored area at the northern edge of the Beaufort Sea, in an attempt to bolster US claims to the area by proving that it is part of its extended outer continental shelf.
The rush to stake out territory across the Arctic has intensified since last August, when a Russian submarine planted the nation's flag on the sea floor beneath the North Pole, which was viewed as a provocative land grab.
That triggered an immediate response from the Canadian Government, which within a week announced that it was going to build two new military bases in the Arctic wilderness, a warning shot in the new Cold War over the far North's energy resources. The Healy will be joined by a Canadian icebreaker on September 6.
On board the Healy will be scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They will use an echo sounder to make a three-dimensional map of the sea floor in an area known as the Chukchi borderland.
The US Geological Survey believes that the Arctic region contains 90 billion barrels of oil waiting to be explored, about 15 per cent of the world's undiscovered reserves, and a third of the world's undiscovered natural gas.
Under international law each of five Arctic countries — Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark — controls an economic zone within 200 miles of its continental shelf. The limits of that shelf are in dispute, and as Russia seeks to expand its gas and oil reserves, the region is at the centre of a battle for energy rights and ownership.
Last summer's Russian expedition, when two mini-submarines reached the seabed 13,980ft (4,260m) beneath the North Pole, was part of a push by Moscow to find evidence for its claim that the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by a single continental shelf, thus making the polar region a geological extension of Russia.
The vessels recovered samples from the seabed in an attempt to demonstrate that the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater shelf that runs through the Arctic, is an extension of Russian territory.
The United Nations rejected that claim in 2002, citing lack of proof but Moscow is expected to make its case again next year.
Denmark and Canada also argue that the Lomonosov Ridge is connected to their territories. Norway too is conducting a survey to strengthen its case. All five Arctic nations are competing to secure subsurface rights to the seabed.
The Healy mission comes amid growing concerns in the US over Russia's strategic advantages in the Arctic. Russia has seven icebreakers to America's three and the Russian vessels are bigger and more powerful.
In recent testimony to Congress Admiral Thad Allen, the head of the US Coast Guard, said: “We are losing ground in the global competition. I'm concerned we are watching our nation's icebreaking capabilities decline.”
