EUREKA, Nunavut - New research at remote camps on the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean suggests Canada has good evidence for its own claim to a vast chunk of the increasingly disputed seabed -- a claim that could go all the way to the North Pole.
"The size of Canada's Arctic and East Coast claim is roughly equivalent to the size of the Prairie provinces,'' said Ruth Jackson, a scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada.
She is one of dozens of researchers at the Eureka weather station on the west coast of Ellesmere Island who are gathering data to back up the assertion.
As advanced technology makes extreme environments less forbidding and climate change continues to reduce ice cover on northern seas, countries with Arctic coastlines are becoming more interested in asserting control over the resources those seas are thought to hold. Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and millions of barrels of oil are believed to lie under water that was once considered inaccessible.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, which Canada signed in 2003, is intended to set the rules for who controls what.
Russia has already filed its own claim to a vast chunk of the Arctic seabed, including the North Pole. That claim was dramatized when a Russian submarine boldly planted a flag on the ocean floor under the Pole.
Not so fast, say Canadian scientists who, from icebreakers and tents pitched right on the ice, have been quietly studying the Arctic sea floor for three years.
"The Arctic Ocean is an order of magnitude less understood than other oceans,'' said Jackson.
And Canada's part of that sea is the hardest to study, she added.
"We have the most difficult ice conditions in the Arctic.''
The treaty allows countries to claim the seabed 111 kilometres (60 nautical miles) out from the foot of the slope of the continental shelf. Undersea ridges extending out from the shelf can be used to extend that claim even further.
Two such ridges lie under the Arctic Ocean -- the Alpha Ridge and the Lomonosov Ridge, which extends all the way over the Pole to Russia. The Lomonosov Ridge is one of Russia's main arguments to claim the Pole.
But the Geological Survey's work suggests that ridge may also be connected to Canada.
Although there is a trough between the ridge and the continental shelf, it's not deep enough under the terms of the treaty to cut the ridge off from the mainland.
"We're fortunate in that the trough does not go deeper than 2,500 metres,'' said Jackson. "That makes the possibility of the claim for the ridge being attached (to Canada) much better.
"If we can show (the ridges) are geologically attached, we also have a claim that could take us as far as the Pole.''
The Lomonosov Ridge is equidistant from Greenland and Canada, so Denmark could claim sea floor off the east side of the ridge and Canada the west.
The treaty also allows seafloor claims to be extended using the thickness of sediments from the mainland _ a powerful argument in the Western Arctic, where Canada and the United States disagree over the marine boundary in the Beaufort Sea.
"The Arctic Ocean is a very small basin and it has large rivers like the Mackenzie River dumping huge amounts of sediment in it,'' said Jackson.
"Now we know how much sediment there is. The thickness of sediment allows us to go a great distance offshore.''
Much data collection remains before Canada's claim is finalized. This week, crews are setting off small explosive charges far out on the sea ice and using 115 sensors to listen to echoes through the rock of the sea floor -- all to paint a clearer picture of what's down there.
It's a big job involving four helicopters, a pair of Twin Otter airplanes and dozens of staff. Two teams are camped on the ice -- one 155 kilometres north of Ellesmere Island, where it's so cold the team's snowmobile must be brought into the camp kitchen overnight so it will start in the morning.
The team has a multi-year budget of $60 million.
The deadline for Canada to submit its claim is 2013. Excellent weather has allowed this season's work to move quickly, said Jackson.
"We have a schedule and we're on schedule. They will make their deadline.''
Preliminary results from the 2006 field season are expected to be published this August.
