David Stonehouse News

Earth's final frontier

Nations claim the ocean floor

By David Stonehouse

A high-stakes battle is under way for swaths of the Earth's last unclaimed territory: the sea bottom.

Countries around the world are racing to lay claims to continental shelves under a set of little-known United Nations regulations -- claims that are mind-boggling in their complexity, but equally astounding for their potential payoffs.

Experts estimate the undersea terrain, rich as it is in oil, gas and other treasures, is worth trillions of dollars.

"This is the last territory we have on Earth to divide up," says David Monahan, the man in charge of preparing Canada's claim, "and some of it is going to get hot."

It will also be hotly disputed, and the haggling will drag on for years -- most of it in secret.

Claims to the sea bottom are based on a provision under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea allowing countries to extend their territory beyond the traditional 200 nautical-mile offshore limit if they can prove the "submerged prolongation" of their land stretches beyond that. The technical rules for continental-shelf claims were completed in 1999.

But the world's coastal nations did not seem to pay much notice to the provision until Russia submitted the first claim a little more than a year ago. The federation's claim was by no means modest: It sought control over almost half the ocean floor.

Suddenly, nations woke up to the potential windfall off their shores.

The United States scrambled to get expert opinions on what kind of case it might have and how much it would cost -- even though it has not yet ratified the convention.

Neither has Canada, but government scientists and others have already plunged into an effort to make extended claims under the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. In all, about 60 countries could submit claims, accounting for a total of roughly 15 million square kilometres, or about five per cent of the ocean floor.

"Countries are going to balloon out and grab up as much ocean floor as they can," says Ron Macnab, a marine geophysicist who has retired from the Geological Service of Canada and now serves as a consultant to countries seeking more underwater territory. "It is one of the few ways nowadays where you can expand your territory without going to war."

Of course, this is more than a land grab. Some countries will come away with untapped, lucrative resources underneath the silt. One estimate tagged the potential wealth of an American claim at $1.3 trillion US.

The claims are not easy to make, however. The provision under Article 76 of the convention calls for a comprehensive compilation of data, including detailed analyses of the contours of the sea floor and the sediment beneath it.

Gathering the necessary underwater measurements -- including hydrographic, geophysical and geologic data -- is a painstakingly slow process, often involving hydrophonic gear on boats going only slightly faster than you can walk.

"Imagine now if you are trying to map an area the size of the Prairie provinces on foot," says Monahan, a professor at the University of New Brunswick and director of ocean mapping for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Canada is considering a claim of about 750,000 square kilometres off the East Coast and another 500,000 square kilometres in the Arctic. Taken together, the two claims amount to roughly the size of the three Prairie provinces combined. (There is no claim to extra territory off the West Coast: The coastal drop-off is too dramatic for the sea bottom to be considered an extension of the continental shelf).

This is not a cheap exercise. Estimates put the cost of filing a Canadian claim at $60 million, although Monahan is quick to point out that the data gathered would also be useful for other purposes.

American scientists are likewise studying the possibilities; potential claim areas include the Gulf of Mexico and continental- shelf areas off the U.S. east coast and Alaska.

There is little doubt that the effort could pay off: Tapping into the oil and gas reserves on the shelf will be very lucrative. And, trapped under continental shelves around the globe, there are also vast reserves of a frozen gas called methane hydrate, a potentially plentiful fuel source if scientists can find a way to free it.

There are also other the potential prizes lying in wait: The creatures lying or crawling along the ocean floor.

"We don't know a hell of a lot about species that live on the sea bed besides food stocks. But we do know that in some parts of the ocean there are life forms that could provide materials for some pharmaceuticals," Macnab says. Scientists at the University of British Columbia, for example, are experimenting with ocean sponges containing chemicals that may be effective in treating cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

Approved claims to territory beyond the 200 nautical-mile limit will expand nations' sovereignty over the ocean floor, what lies beneath it and sedentary species that live along the bottom. Waters over the new territory and the creatures that live above the sea floor will remain the "common heritage of mankind," as the UN puts it.

The carving up of the continental shelves worries environmentalist Elizabeth May. She views it as greater "privatization" of the oceans and further exploitation of their resources.

Countries have 10 years after ratification of the UN convention to file claims to the continental shelf; the first nations to ratify the pact face a deadline of 2009.

(Also appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and St. John's Telegram)