OTTAWA (AFP) — Canada and the United States will join forces to gather scientific data on the Arctic continental shelf, in a step aimed in part at bolstering claims over the potentially oil-rich zone, Ottawa and Washington have announced.
Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn said on Monday Canada and the United States will conduct a joint survey of the undersea polar continental shelf in the western Arctic beginning next month.
The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St.-Laurent will rendezvous with the US Coast Guard Healy in the Beaufort Sea, north of Canada and Alaska, on or about September 8 for the three-week joint operation.
"Through collaboration with our US neighbors, we will maximize both scientific and financial resources while collecting important data as part of Canada's submission to the UN by 2013," Lunn said in a statement.
Canada has until the end of that year to submit data on the extent of its continental shelf to the United Nations.
The study was announced just days after Canadian representatives presented findings from a joint Canadian-Danish survey in the eastern Arctic as part of Ottawa's intent to extend Canada's territory beyond the current 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers).
Last week Lunn said the Canadian-Danish research determined the undersea Lomonosov Ridge is attached to the North American and Greenland plates, directly challenging a Russian claim to a vast portion of the Arctic.
The extension could add up to 1.75 million square kilometers (676,000 square miles) -- an area three times the size of France -- to Canada's claims in the contested region, according to Lunn.
The Healy will be charged with mapping the seafloor while the Louis S. St. Laurent will work to determine the thickness of sediment, in a collaboration that will "assist both countries in defining the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean," according to a US State Department statement.
Five countries that border the Arctic Ocean -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States -- dispute the sovereignty of the region's waters.
The US Geological Survey believes that the Arctic region contains 90 billion barrels of oil waiting to be explored.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that any coastal state can claim territory 200 nautical miles from their shoreline and exploit the natural resources within that zone.
Interest in the economic exploitation of the Arctic has increased significantly in recent years as melting ice floes have eased access to the region's rich oil and gas reserves.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
