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‘We all live in a yellow submarine…’
The Canadian government is rolling memories back to the Beatles’ heyday in its pursuit of control over Arctic natural resources.
It plans to launch two yellow submersibles in 2010 to embark on 250-mile missions north and west of Ellesmere Island to get a fix on how far the sea floor extends from Canada’s continental shelf and whether it can establish geological links from its High Arctic islands to the underwater mountain ranges known as the Alpha and Lomonosov ridges.
The C$4 million joint effort by Natural Resources Canada and various federal agencies starts with the construction of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles by Vancouver-based International Submarine Engineering Ltd.
Detailed information the goal The 4,000 pound vessels are expected to yield detailed information about the geology of the polar seabed, providing evidence to back Canada’s sovereignty submission to the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea in 2013 — the key element in deciding how to divided the Arctic sea floor among Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark and Norway.
Canada and the U.S. have already completed a joint seabed-mapping mission in the Beaufort Sea, tagged as potentially the hottest Arctic oil prospect.
But that information was collected by icebreakers towing survey equipment along the ocean surface, whereas the submersibles will enhance the information about the ocean bottom in a region that poses major challenges to ships and helicopters.
Federal officials concede they are under extreme pressure to collect the data and bolster Canada’s claims.
—Gary Park
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