Mapping Redefines International Borders
digital earth, global change January 19th, 2008
Russia’s undersea arctic mapping effort is only one of many international efforts to better define country borders. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, ratified in 1994, redefined country border lines by defining the boundary as the edge of the continental shelf. As a result countries are busily undertaking undersea mapping efforts to determine where continental shelfs end.
Overlapping claims are mounting as the determination of shelf boundaries is still an inexact science. The arctic is one area of dispute, as is the Gulf of Mexico, the Bering Sea, and the South Pole.
Read more in this online story in Wired magazine.
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July 1st, 2008 at 6:30 am
[...] The joint-research and mapping expedition will head north late this summer to explore the Canada Basin, which is located north of the Beaufort Sea. The Canadian team will use seismic equipment to determine the thickness of sedimentary layers in the seabed, and will aim to determine where the continental shelf ends. [...]