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Canada steps up Arctic OCS mapping
Gary Park For Petroleum News
With only four years left in the race to lay claim to the Arctic Ocean seabed, Canada is gearing up for six months of mapping work by a team of federal scientists to determine how far the continental shelf extends into Canada basin, located north of the Beaufort Sea.
The activities are expected to start about mid-March and continue virtually non-stop until the start of fall, Jacob Verhoef, from Natural Resources Canada, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The leader of the Canadian effort, which is backed by C$109 million of federal government money, said a gradual buildup over the last two or three years will accelerate to maximum effort this year.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Canada has until 2013 to make its sovereignty claims, including control of vast areas rich in resources, such as minerals, oil and natural gas.
Canada signed the international treaty in 2003 and has been working with Denmark to map the Lomonosov Ridge near Ellesmere Island.
Three joint projects That joint effort will now include three projects: one to map the seabed north of Ward Hunt Island; one to map an area in the Labrador Sea; and an aerial survey near Alert in Nunavut Territory.
In the process, scientists will test an autonomous underwater vehicle off Alert in April and hope to use two underwater vehicles in 2010 to map remote parts of the Arctic seabed.
The effort will also provide an opportunity to test new techniques that are evolving from satellite imagery.
Although the United States has yet to ratify the United Nations treaty, it has collaborated with Canada on mapping work.
About 200 researchers and coast guard personnel participated in that work last year aboard a Canadian icebreaker and U.S. Coast Guard cutter as they try to prove that their continental shelves extend beyond the 200 nautical-mile economic zone.
They fired more than 85,000 seismic pulses into the ocean and, according to Verhoef, gathered data “in areas we’ve never been before,” reaching latitudes as far as 83 degrees north.
He said the preliminary data has yielded encouraging support for Canada’s claims.
The two countries are now considering another joint mapping project north of Banks Island to focus on an underwater mountain chain called Alpha Ridge.
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