A recent release from the Center for Coastal and Oceanic Mapping Joint Hydrographic Center (CCOM-JHC) at UNH and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shown that the boundaries off the continental slope of Alaska extend much farther from U.S. coastal territory than previously known.
Such evidence could help to support U.S. claims to natural resources farther than 200 nautical miles from the coast of Alaska. The data comes after the research teams' recent expedition to the Arctic Area known as the Chukchi Cap, some 600 miles North of Alaska.
Conducted from mid-August to mid-September of 2007 aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, the expedition covered more than 5,400 linear nautical miles of an area previously little known to researchers. Students from developing countries all over the world took part in the expedition, as well as state department representatives.
"The nice thing about this mapping is that where we are mapping is one of the least mapped places in the world so every time we go there we find stuff that's really new and different," said scientist Larry Mayer, director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping and co-director of the Joint Hydrographic Center.
United Nations Law of the Sea Convention allows for recognized nations to extend their natural resource boundaries beyond 200 nautical miles off the continental slope. The Bush Administration has supported the approval of the convention, which now is under consideration in the Senate.
"There was this indication that where we thought the natural extension was, it looks like, it looks much farther and that is important implications for the potential expansion of the extended continental shelf," said Mayer.
If the legislation is passed, the United States would not only have rights to the resources in the area, it would also be responsible for the protection of the area, and require other nations to be granted permission to travel into U.S. sea space.
The rights that the United States would be entitled to would not fall within territorial limits and would only be for natural resources.
"It's a different set of rights than we have in the territorial sea and even in the exclusive economic zone, it's restricted to the resources of the sea floor," said NOAA Office of the Coast Survey researcher Andy Armstrong. Armstrong is co-chief scientist on the expedition, and co-director of the Joint Hydrographic Center alongside Mayer.
In 2002, the CCOM-JHC were asked to look at potential areas the United States might be able to extend boundary rights to natural resources.
"It's not just in the Arctic, it's all around the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico and the South Pacific," said Mayer. The expedition is only one of a series that began in 2003 and have since covered the Bering Sea, the Atlantic Coast of the United States, the Gulf of Alaska, the Mariana Islands and the Gulf of Mexico.
Mayer said the unlike previous expeditions due to the ice in the area mapping was harder, as most of the arctic region is completely frozen.
"Because the Arctic is covered by ice, we can't do the area as quickly as the others, not only is it hard to get too, once your there it's hard to map in the ice," said Mayer.
Mayer did comment that the ice layers on this past years trip were not as prevalent as years before, and may be indicating a long term climate change, as the temperature variation from year to year has caused variation in the thickness of the ice.
"In terms of the state of the ice we were certainly seeing evidence of what appears to be a long term climate change," said Mayer.
Gouges over 500 meters deep on the sea floor were reported caused by glaciers, and ice sheets. "It's giving us a new picture of where and how far ice sheets are distributed," said Armstrong.
Among the technologies used to map the sea floor were a multi-beam echo sounder, depth sounder that measures depths not only straight down, but also under a wide spectrum around.
"As the ship sails along we map the whole swathe of depths, in most places when we use that we go and map the area completely, in arctic because of the ice and the difficulty we've been running our lines more strategically," said Armstrong.
"It's really important, I think, for UNH graduate students to be involved both in having the opportunity to engage in these projects," said UNH grad student Janice Felzenberg. "It was just amazing to be out there as a grad student and be involved in processing the data."
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