Russian mini-subs reach North Pole seabed

Two deep-diving Russian miniature submarines today descended more than two and a half miles to the ocean floor beneath the North Pole, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Expedition leader Artur Chilingarov, who was aboard the MIR 1 three-person sub, told colleagues on a research ship on the surface that his craft had reached the seabed. “The landing was smooth, the yellowish ground is around us, no sea dwellers are seen,” he said, according to Tass.

In a perilous project mixing science, exploration and the scramble for potential oil and gas fields, crews of the MIR 1 and MIR 2 are engaged in what Russian authorities called the first dive to the ocean floor at Earth’s northernmost point.

The crew of the MIR 1 planned to drop a titanium capsule containing the nation’s flag on the bottom, symbolically claiming almost half of the planet’s northern polar region for Moscow.

Chilingarov, 68, a famed polar scientist, spoke of the danger of the expedition in comments broadcast on Russia’s NTV television before he boarded the first sub. “I am scared and I don’t hide it,” he said.

Expedition members say the biggest challenge for the sub crews will be to find their way back to an opening in the surface of the thick polar pack ice after their dive. They must resurface before exhausting their air supplies.

Researchers mapped the location of the natural openings in the ice before the dives. The atomic-powered icebreaker Rossiya spent most of last night and this morning carving a large artificial opening near the pole, RTR television reported.

The subs and their three-member crews planned to spend several hours in the murky depths conducting a study of the water chemistry and geology near the seabed at the pole, according to Russia’s Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic, which organised the expedition.

The MIR 2’s crew includes Michael McDowell, an Australian described by the ITAR-Tass news agency as a polar explorer, and Frederik Paulsen, a Swedish pharmaceuticals millionaire described as a co-sponsor of the dive.

The subs began the eight-hour plunge later than expected, and were expected to return to the surface and the research ship Akademik Fyodorov late afternoon.

Russian scientists planned to map part of the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. The ridge was discovered by the Soviets in 1948 and named after a famed 18th-century Russian scientist, Mikhail Lomonosov.

In December 2001, Moscow claimed the ridge was an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia’s continental shelf under international law. The UN rejected Moscow’s application, citing lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009.

If recognised, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles, representing almost half of the Arctic seabed. Little is known about the ocean floor near the pole, but by some estimates it could contain vast oil and gas deposits.

The voyage has some scientific goals, including studies of the climate, geology and biology of the polar region. But its chief aim appears to be to advance Russia’s political and economic influence by strengthening its legal claims to the Arctic.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said during a visit to Manila that the expedition should substantiate Russia’s claim that the Eurasian continental shelf extends to the North Pole.

“I think this expedition will supply additional scientific evidence for our aspirations,” said Lavrov, according to the Interfax wire service. He added though, the issue of which nation what portion of the polar region “will be resolved in strict compliance with international law.”