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Exploring Arctic, North Pole

Russian MP's head to the Deep Blue Sea

By Joshua S. Hill

Thursday, August 2, 2007

It would be nice to report on scientific endeavors undertaken for simple scientific exploration, but that cannot be the case all the time. Instead, it must fall to someone to occasionally find that exploration for exploration's sake has fallen by the wayside, in lieu of exploration for financial benefits.

This could be said for the latest news from AFP, who is reporting on the Russian team plowing the deeps of the ocean beneath the North Pole seabed. Led by a veteran explorer who also happens to reside in the nation's parliament, Artur Chilingarov, the Arctic 2007 expedition is exploring a crucial area of the seabed which is said to hold rich deposits of oil and gas.

It is a sad fact that the trends of global warming which have somewhat depleted the arctic region -- as the result of what who knows -- have excited people with the opportunity to further explore the region, rather than put it back together. Nonetheless, it is without a doubt a great leap in the Arctic exploration to be able to delve in to the mysteries held beneath the polar ice, where no one has ever gone before.

Sounding Star Trek like? Not surprising, considering that the depths beneath the North Pole have literally never been visited before. Chilingarov says this of the expedition; "We face the most severe and risky task, to descend to the depths, to the seabed, in the harshest of oceans, where no one has been before and to stand in the centre of the ocean on our own feet. Humanity has long dreamt of this."

Preceded by a nuclear powered ice-breaker, the Akademik Fyodorov is bearing the researchers are currently being escorted to the pole itself, after a successful test of their mini-subs. The subs reportedly dove to a depth of 1,300 meters (4,300 feet), before successfully returning to the surface; always a benefit for submarines.

When they reach their destination, the subs will descend to a depth of 4,200 metres (14,000 feet), reaching the seabed below and planting a Russian flag as a reminder to all the fish of the deep blue sea that that piece of seabed apparently belongs to Russia. Try to ignore the cynicism that has seeped through in to my reporting now, as I cringe at the continual effort of countries to claim areas of land for their own.

My cynicism comes thanks to several other nations making claims on sub-sea resources believed to be part of their land mass, though well out of their economic zones. Thank goodness for continental plates huh?

Claes Ragner, an expert at Norway's Fridtjof Nansen Institute, who commented on Denmark's efforts to extend their focus to the coast of Greenland, added that, "It's kind of a race between Arctic countries to extend their continental shelves as far north as possible, to claim as much as possible of the Arctic sea bottom."

Russia has had a long history with the Arctic, and is using that exploratory history to extend their rights to various land shelves' attached to their own. A submission to the United Nations commission submitted that a section of sub-sea territory that ran beneath the North Pole, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, was indeed still attached to Russia itself. President Vladimir Putin, on board a nuclear-powered ice-breaker in May this year urged greater efforts to ensure that Russia's interests in the Arctic are secured.

All of this has apparently captured the attention of the Americans as well, with sights of an American spy-plan above the region sending local journalists in to a frenzy of national pride at apparently falling "…under the American microscope." However those attached to the expedition have downplayed this, saying that the supposed plane "…was doing purely scientific research."

Nevertheless, the research will continue and hopefully the scientific benefits of these exploratory missions will overweigh any financial gains made, for the last thing we need is further proof that exploration can reap financial benefits. One must only look at the North American attitude towards its chillier regions to see the negative affects it has made there.

The Akademik Fyodorov -- named for a Russian Orthodox Christian philosopher, who was part of the Russian cosmism movement and philosophy of Transhumanism -- will continue on from its expedition once the mini-subs return to set up a drifting ice station, which will house 11 researchers bent on studying climate issues in the Arctic.

Other articles by Joshua Hill

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