The United States has extended its claims over the ocean floor, encompassing an area twice the size of California. This extension grants the US exclusive rights to potentially lucrative seabeds, particularly in the Arctic and Bering Sea.
This move coincides with heightened efforts by Washington to secure a stable supply of minerals crucial for advancing future technologies.
The Extended Continental Shelf now spans approximately 1 million square kilometers (386,100 square miles), with declared boundaries in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico, adding significant strategic importance to regions where Canada and Russia also assert claims.
The eagerly anticipated declaration made earlier this week delineates the outer limits of the United States continental shelf, representing the nation’s subsea land territory.
According to international law, nations are entitled to economic rights over natural resources on and beneath the seabed floor, determined by the extent of their continental shelves.
Rebecca Pincus, who serves as the director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, said on the significance of this week’s news, “It’s a huge deal because it’s a huge amount of territory.”
The Wilson Center has dedicated an entire webpage to exploring the implications of the recent developments.
“It’s US sovereignty over the seabed floor, and so whether it’s seabed mining, or oil and gas leasing, or cables, or what have you, the US is announcing the borders of its ECS and will have sovereignty over those decisions.”
The US State Department said the development “is about geography, not resources.”
