Russia to file full claim for extended Arctic shelf by 2013

ST. PETERSBURG (Itar-Tass) -- Russia plans to file a full
set of documents substantiating its claim for extended Arctic shelf by
2013, according to State Duma deputy speaker and presidential envoy for
the Arctic Artur Chilingarov.
He told a conference on Thursday the Yamal icebreaker and the Akademic
Fedorov research vessel launched the final stage of a deep probe into the
oceanic bed in the Arctic region to confirm the underwater Lomonosov ridge
and the Mendeleev ridge are extensions of the Russian landmass.
The research is carried out "in the framework of the action plan to
substantiate the Russian submission to legally fix the outisde border of
the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean," the Research Institute of the
Arctic and Antarctic said.
Chilingarov descended for the first time in history to the seabed of
the North Pole in 2007 on a Mir submersible and planted a Russian flag
there.
Following the expedition the Russian Natural Resources Ministry said
preliminary results of an analysis of the earth crust model confirmed that
the crust structure of the Lomonosov ridge corresponds to the world
analogues of the continental crust, and it is therefore part of the
Russian Federation's adjacent continental shelf.
Yet in 2001 Russia made an official submission to the UN Commission on
the Limits of the Continental Shelf in accordance with the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea. In was proposed to establish the outer
limits of the continental shelf of Russia beyond the 200 nautical mile
exclusive economic zone, but within the Russian Arctic sector.