A Russian mini-submarine reached the bottom of the Arctic Ocean under the North Pole on Thursday in a mission to back up Moscow's claims to the region's mineral riches. "The Mir-1 submarine has successfully reached the bottom of the Arctic Ocean at a depth of 4,261 metres (13,980 feet)," the Vesti-24 television channel reported from the Akademik Fyodorov research ship leading the expedition.

The dive, which organisers say is the first to reach the ocean floor under the North Pole, aims to establish that a section of seabed passing through the pole, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, is in fact an extension of Russia's landmass.

"We must determine the border. The most northerly border of the Russian shelf," veteran Arctic explorer Artur Chilingarov, who is on board the submarine, said in comments broadcast earlier.

Chilingarov, fellow parliamentarian Vladimir Gruzdev and another crew member will carry out scientific tests and place a titanium Russian flag on the seabed, the Russian institute organizing the mission said in a statement.

A second submarine, the Mir-2, was to complete the mission which was expected to last between eight and nine hours in all, the statement said.

Expedition organisers from the Arctic and Antarctic Institute in Saint Petersburg said official confirmation of the descent would come only once the mini-submarines are back on board.

The voyage reflects growing international interest in the Arctic partly due to climate change, which is causing greater melting of the ice and making the area more accessible for research and economic activity.

In a speech on a nuclear ice-breaker earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin urged greater efforts to secure Russia's "strategic, economic, scientific and defense interests" in the region.

In 2001 Russia made a submission to a United Nations commission claiming sub-sea rights stretching to the pole. The current mission is looking for evidence to back up this claim.

The expedition comes as several countries try to extend their rights over over sections of the Arctic Ocean floor.

Both Norway and Denmark are carrying out surveys to this end and Canada has promised to increase the number of ice-breakers patrolling its sector.

US politicians, including Senator Richard Lugar, have urged defence of the country's Arctic interests to stand up to Russian claims over large stretches of the seabed.

"Unless the United States ratifies the treaty, Moscow will be able to press its claims without an American at the table," Lugar said in May, referring to the Law of the Sea treaty.

Russian media reported a US expedition that set off from Norway on July 1 to study another part of the Arctic seabed, the Gakkel Ridge, was part of a race between Moscow and Washington for the Arctic's mineral riches.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which was organising the voyage, is in search of hydrothermal vents said the "expedition is in search of hydrothermal vents and new biological life."

On Thursday a second Russian expedition was to be launched from the northern port of Arkhangelsk for a 100-day research mission to Russia's Arctic seas, the Arctic and Antarctic Institute said.

http://www.physorg.com/news105253640.html

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