| Today, main resources of world Ocean are petrol and combustible gas,
deposited at its sea beds. Half of the extracted hydrocarbon raw
material is taken out from sea depths.
Arctic attracts several countries due to its huge gas and oil
reserves. According to the prognosis of scientists, melting of ice and
general rise in temperatures can make Northern Ice Ocean an active
thoroughfare between Europe, Asia and America.
Arctic - North Polar Region of the Earth and surrounded by continents
Eurasia and North America, entire Northern ice ocean with islands
(excepting the coastal islands of Norway) and also adjoining portions
of Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Southern boundary of Arctic coincides
with southern boundary of Tundra. Area is approximately 27 million
sq.km. Sometimes, Arctic is bounded from the South by North polar
circle.
It is known fact that, depths, rich with carbon of plant and animal
origin, as a rule, form deposits of liquefied and solid fuel. Large
mass of stones and incoherent minerals, carried away from shores on
drifting ice, settle down at seabed. When the ice melts, then the
accumulated mass could form into heavy "cover", creating huge pressure
on the internal structure, lying beneath and thus the internal
structure is transformed into oil or gas.
Oil reserves were already explored on shallow shelves, flanking the
Arctic from Arctic plain on North of Alaska up to North of Europe. But
barrels of dark, old rocks, taken out from underwater Lomonosov
mountain ridges indeed are first hint that such reserves occur even in
basins with a depth of two miles near the "vertex of the globe".
Though, results of underwater drilling near North Pole are important
not only for the consumers of liquefied and gaseous fuel. After all,
sedimentary stratum, accumulated on bedrock over tens of millions of
years, forms peculiar chronological scale, according to which it is
possible to trace the climatic changes, occurred during this period.
And it is also important to prepare justified prognosis of its future
changes.
Since the ice is thinning, new fish trading regions business shall
come-up due to global warming and shortly, fishermen shall lay their
fishing nets there, where once only polar white bears were to be
sighted.
It is not the fauna that is threatening to transform the Arctic into
an arena for subsequent confrontation of super powers but the oil and
gas, which are occurring at the ocean bed.
Till recently no one had thought of drilling the seabed of Northern
Ice Ocean, since it was impossible to even imagine the compensation of
expenditure, spent on drilling. This has changed ever since the fast
economic growth of China and India spurred the world prices on oil.
Estimation of energy resources, occurring at the bed of Northern Ice
Ocean, differ but, it is possible that the energy resources are not
less than the available in Saudi Arabia. US Geological Survey reckoned
that 25% of unexplored global reserves of oil and gas are located in
Arctic Ocean. It is considered that approximately 10 billion cubic
meters of hydrocarbons and also diamonds and ores is deposited in
Arctic.
This threatens to lead to new oil rush in the region: Five countries
are breaking through ice packs to obtain whatever is lying beneath
them. And who knows what harm they are causing to the ecology of
ice cap.
Russia, Canada, USA, Norway and Denmark are claiming Arctic.
International Law gives each of the countries a right to have control
over economic zone within the limits of 200 miles of "Continental
shelf", defined as "Underwater continuation of surface territory of
States". On the basis of this definition, amicable International
agreements were made almost in all the regions of world excluding the
Arctic. Geology of Northern Ice Ocean - item of fierce disputes.
Any country, tearing for oil in the Global warming period, is acting
as extremely irresponsible, informs Ben Stewart from the Greenpeace
organization. Countries, ambitious to grab lion's share of organic
fuel, can spoil the untouched environment of Arctic. Instead, it would
be worth fighting for renewable fuel resources. |
Russia has claimed its rights to the Arctic and sent a submarine to the Noth Pole which will plant a capsule with Russian Flag into the Arctic seabed, claming the ownership of the area. Recent tests showed that Arctic seabed oil deposits total to 10-16 billion barrels of oil - as much as 25% of remaining "black gold" deposits on the planet.
At the moment no country posesses the necessary technology to extract oil from the Noth Pole seabed under 7 miles of water and ice, however it is only a matter of time before such technology is developed. With Arctic ice melting significantly in the last decades, the Polar area is becoming more open for exploration. Unites States, Canada and other countries are likely to dispute the Russian ownership of the Arctic and its fuel resources. 
