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September 5, 2008 11:49:09 PM CDT

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Seabed Rights Add Up to Long Division

Posted Feb 22, 08 3:01 PM CST in World,  Science & Health 

(Newser) – The UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf has a big job. As some 60 countries rush to claim the ocean seabed—and the oil reserves beneath—the 21-person team of part-time scientists must settle disputes, relying on geology and the sometimes arcane Law of the Sea. “Are we up to the task? Not really, to be honest,” says the commissioner.

Law of the Sea signatories, which don't include the US, must submit their claims by 2009, the Wall Street Journal explains, so the commission has more work than it can handle. Each claim requires hydrographers to pore over technical details like the slopes of seabed sediment. At stake, says the chairman: "Money. Money, of course."

Source Wall Street Journal

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Continental shelf territory is visible surrounding the Florida peninsula in this NASA photo. In other nations where the boundaries can be less clear, it is left to less than two dozen scientists to settle...   (nasa.gov)
A titanium capsule with the Russian flag is seen seconds after it was planted by the Mir-1 mini submarine on the Arctic Ocean seabed under the North Pole during a record dive in this Thursday, Aug. 2,...   (Associated Press)
Phytoplankton and Hydrogen Sulfide glow green in the oceans depths off the Coast of Namibia. The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a part-time group of just 21 geoscientists from around...   (Wikimedia commons)
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United Nations  • oil exploration  • Arctic race  • seabed  • Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf


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