Property

The Arctic Oceans Commons Deep Sea bed area is firmly international waters and as such forms a part of the common heritage of all mankind . It is not naturally appurtenant to any of the five adjacent state’s landmass.

No gentle continental slope extends into the Arctic Ocean Commons basin proper and there is no valid UNCLOS rule mechanism (nor should there be) for States to make valid claims beyond the edge of their  continental slope into the Arctic Ocean Commons Deeps Oceanic Basins.

The 1982 LOS convention clearly differentiates the legal notion of a continental shelf from the geological continental shelf.

1. Geologically, the continental shelf commences where the land meets the sea and ends at the Upper edge of the continental slope.

2. Legally, it begins where the territorial sea bed regime stops and it stretches to at least 200 nautical miles from the coast, even if the geological edge of the continental shelf does not extend so far.

Only those geographically favored broad continental shelf margin states (such as Brazil) may extend it further, in accordance with strictly defined criteria, up to a maximum of 350 miles from the territorial baselines or 100 miles from the 2,500 metres isobath, which is a line connecting points to a depth of 2,500 metres on the gentle continental slope. (Note: A tax or royalty would be payable to landlocked states from resource developments in these extended continental shelf areas).

The rights of coastal states only exists in respect of the gently sloping continental shelf that constitutes a natural prolongation of its land territory. We assert that if the commission grants any extensions past the continental shelf or the 200 mile limit in the Arctic they will have so diluted the concept and rules of the LOS that they might as well give up the entire international oceans concept entirely.

Geology

1. The geologically distinct morphology and structure of the Arctic Oceanic Basins Commons has been widely documented using airborne magnetic and gravity surveys, seismic surveys, coring and drilling.  With the only viable conclusion being that the Arctic Ocean Commons is a separate and geologically distinct oceanic basin on oceanic crust region with no geological integrity or continuity with the adjacent shallow continental margins or slopes.

2. The Arctic Ocean Abyssal was formed by seafloor spreading volcanic crustal Ridges, and oceanic basin settling and it is continuing to be so formed.  The process pushed back the continental shelf areas and has created a geologically distinct large oceanic abyssal basins sitting on oceanic crust separated by remnants of spreading volcanic ridges, the Lomonosov, Mendeleev, and one active volcanic ridge, the Gakkel.

3. The deep Arctic Commons basin region may also have been partially affected by a large meteoroid impact.

4. The Arctic Ocean geodepression is bordered with broad peripheral continental shelf and has a central deep oceanic core.  Evidence suggests that the Northern Alaska Terrane swung quickly from the Arctic Islands of Canada toward the Pacific Basin to open up the Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean leaving the Chukchi Ridge separated from its origin against Canada.

5. For States to be asserting that the obviously oceanic volcanic spreading crustal ridges are in some mysterious way, extensions of their continental shelf is scientifically incorrect and obviously wrong to even the slightly informed independent observer.

6. There is a complete         lack of commonality and geological continuity to the surrounding geological continental shelf margins. Any claims made to the contrary are obviously spurious and perhaps taking liberty with the facts in response to motivation of nationalistic political interests and political ideology, not the LOST rules and-or geological and scientific facts on the ground.

7. Any sedimentary layers overlying the crustal base in the Arctic Ocean commons basinal region are from very mixed origins via ice carriage sourced variously from all of the rivers around the margins and cannot be claimed as being sourced from any particular country’s continental shelf. Thus again using this construct, none of the Arctic Ocean Abyssal oceanic basins, by any stretch of the imagination, could be construed as extensions of any country’s geological continental shelf.

8. The Arctic ice sheet moves in varying directions at approximately 400 meters per hour and its direction changes from time to time, resulting in sediment carriage erratically to all areas over millions of years. By this transport mechanism, Canadian sourced sediments end up all over the arctic region, even on the Russian continental shelf and vice versa.

9. Approximately 50 million years ago there were land bridges across the entrances to the Arctic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean was a tropical fresh water super-pond, with sediments largely made up of organic azolla fern plants and algae living and dying in the central Arctic super-pond area piling up high organic content sediments in the central Arctic area. Thus this organic material did not come from any States landmass.

10.The Chukchi Ridge contains crustal elements and ridges split off from Canada. Thus indicating that the Arctic Basin possibly underwent rotation as well as spreading during its history.

11.The Menedeleev Ridge is largely composed of volcanics overlain by mixed sediments sourced via ice carriage from all around the arctic. The Mendeleev Ridge is a hot spot track. (Lawver and Miller, 1994). Exposed on the East Siberian margin, near the southern termination of the Mendeleev Ridge, is a huge are of the volcanic Mid Cretaceous flood basalts. This is not the extension of any gentle sloped geological continental shelf material from any surrounding country.

12. ”Mounting Geologic and geophysical evidence indicates the Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge System is the surface expression of a single continuous geologic feature that is formed on the oceanic crust of the Arctic Ocean basin by volcanism over a ”hot spot“. (A ”hot spot“ is a magma source rooted in the Earth’s mantle that is persistent for at least a few tens of millions of years and intermittently produces volcanoes on the overlying earth’s crust as it drifts across the hot spot during continental drift.) The Alpha-Mendeleev hot spot was formed by magma that was funneled from a hot spot to the spreading axis that created the Amerasia Basin of the Arctic Ocean 130 to 120 million years ago, and built a volcanic ridge about 35 km thick on the newly formed oceanic crust. Both aeromagnetic and bathymetric data show that the ridge extends entirely across the Arctic Ocean, and that it’s characteristic aeromagnetic expression ends at the continental shelves.

The Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge is identical in origin to the Iceland-Faroe Ridge, an oceanic ridge of volcanic origin of similar thickness and morphology that is now forming from magma funneled from a hot spot to the actively spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Alpha-Medeleeev Ridge System is therefore a volcanic feature of oceanic origin that was formed on, and occurs only within the area of, the oceanic crust that underlies the Amerasia Subbasin of the deep Arctic Ocean Basin. It is not not part of any continental shelf.. Some specific supporting data are:

-The sea floor of the Alpha Mendeleev Ridge is bathymetrically rough and the overall (average) slope of its flanks is low to moderate. In these characteristics it resembles the morphology of the oceanic Iceland-Faroe Ridge and differs markedly from the morphology of ridges in the ocean that are composed of continental rock, which have flat or gently convex crests and steep slopes.

13.The Lomonosov Ridge is clearly a volcanic spreading Ridge remnant of another hot spot track of crustal origin.

It is widely believed that propagation of the Gakkel Ridge created the Eurasian Basin. The Gakkel Ridge and is still spreading at a rate of .5 to 1.25 cm per year. Hydrothermal plume reconnaissance conducted during rock sampling operations revealed evidence of abundant hydrothermal venting on the Gakkel Ridge [Edmonds et al., 2003]. This is again, not continental shelf material.