Denmark's expedition leaves for Arctic to stake claim

STOCKHOLM, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Denmark sent a scientific expedition to the Arctic Sunday, joining the competition to stake claims over rights to the huge fuel and mineral resources under the North Pole's seabed, Danish news media reported.


The expedition is aimed at seeking evidence that the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,240-mile (1,995-km) underwater mountain range, is attached to the Danish territory of Greenland, making it a geological extension of the Arctic island.


With the help of Sweden, the scientists set off from Norway's remote Arctic islands of Svalbard aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden on the month-long expedition.


The team, composed of 40 scientists, 10 of them Danish, will employ sophisticated equipment, including sonar, to map the seabed under the ice of the Arctic. The expedition is expected to cost more than 11 million U.S. dollars.


The five states along the Arctic Circle -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States -- all claimed sovereignty over part of the Arctic, which has 1200,000 square kilometers of seabed and abundant untapped gas, oil and mineral resources.


The race to secure rights to the Arctic heated up when Russia sent two small submarines to plant a tiny national flag under the North Pole last week, prompting the United States to launch an expedition to the Pole, and Canada to announce plans to establish two military bases there to assert sovereignty.


According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the North Pole does not belong to any country and each of the five nearby states has only a 320-kilometer economic zone around the north of their coastline.


A U.S. study suggested as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden under the seabed of the Arctic region.