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Russia plants a tiny 'flag' to bolster claim to North Pole

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 3, 2007

MOSCOW - Two small Russian submarines completed a risky voyage deep below the North Pole on Thursday, planting a titanium capsule on the Arctic Ocean floor to symbolically claim what could be vast energy reserves beneath the seabed.

Expedition leader Artur Chilingarov, 68, spent 8 hours and 40 minutes submerged aboard the Mir-1 with his two crew mates, ITAR-Tass said, with the last 40 minutes used to find the break in the ice for resurfacing. The second sub, Mir-2, and its three-member crew, including a Swede and an Australian, surfaced more than an hour after the first, after about 9 1/2 hours under the ice. The Mir-1 reached a depth of 13,980 feet, Tass reported. The Mir-2 went deeper, to 14,144 feet below the surface. Expedition organizers said each sub had a 72-hour air supply. The subs collected geologic and water samples and dropped the yardlong canister.

Thursday's dive was part serious scientific expedition and part political theater. But it could mark the start of a fierce legal scramble for control of the sea bed among nations that border the Arctic, including Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark, through its territory Greenland.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey dismissed the significance of planting a flag in the North Pole seabed.

"I'm not sure whether they put a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bedsheet on the ocean floor," he said. "Either way it doesn't have any legal standing."

Peter Mackay, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, dismissed the voyage as "just a show."

"Look, this isn't the 15th century," he said. "You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory.' "

Russia planned to use the dive to help map the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. The ridge was discovered by the Soviets in 1948 and named after 18th century Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov. Moscow claims the ridge is an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia's continental shelf under international law. If recognized, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles, representing almost half of the Arctic seabed. Little is known about the ocean floor near the pole, but by some estimates it could contain vast oil and gas deposits.

[Last modified August 2, 2007, 22:58:03]