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to other boundaries. Canada, for example, extends the ocean border as a straight-line extension of its land border with Alaska, whereas the United States draws the line at right angles to its coastline. This creates a smallish disputed triangle (about 6,250 square miles) of overlapping claims to the Beaufort Sea. In the Barents Sea, Norway and Russia had quite serious overlapping claims but announced resolution of the conflict in 2010.350 These are not insignificant disputes but, relative to the mess of conflicts existing prior to UNCLOS, manageable ones.

Beyond the two-hundred-nautical-mile limit are the high seas, their resources controlled by no one. However, UNCLOS Article 76 allows a special exception. If a country can prove, scientifically, that the seafloor is a geological extension of its continental shelf—meaning that it is still attached to the country’s landmass, just underwater—then the country may file a claim with a special U.N. commission to request sovereignty over that seabed even beyond the two-hundred-nautical-mile limit.351 Article 76 lays out a clear and orderly procedure for doing this. Because the Arctic Ocean is small, has unusually broad continental shelves, and is mostly encircled by land, it is unique among the world’s oceans in that a great deal of it could potentially be carved up into these extended zones. Russia, Denmark, Canada, Norway, and the United States352 are the sole countries with frontage on the Arctic Ocean. These five countries are thus well positioned to win control over large tracts of its seafloor and any hydrocarbons or minerals it may contain.

The key words here are scientific and orderly. The case for an Article 76 claim must be documented exhaustively with petabytes of scientific data. Foremost is a detailed mapping of seafloor bathymetry—its topographic relief—from multibeam hydrographic sonar. Seismic surveys, using explosives or blasts of compressed air to send shockwaves into the seabed, trace out the deeper subterranean geology. Sediment samples, like the ones grabbed by Chilingarov’s tiny submarines at the North Pole, are used to establish geological provenance. And so on.

All of this takes years of costly research, but there is a process to it and eventually it gets done. Norway submitted its EEZ extension claim in 2006 and was approved in 2009.353 The United States, Canada, Denmark, and Russia are still busily mapping, with Russia closest to being done. Canada will file by 2013 and Denmark by 2014. Because the United States hasn’t ratified UNCLOS yet, it will likely be last to file but has already gathered much of the required hydrographic sonar and other data from the Healy icebreaker, work led by Larry Mayer at the University of New Hampshire.

After all this work and expense, small wonder that these five countries—Russia, Denmark, Canada, Norway, and the United States—recently banded together to issue the “Ilulissat Declaration,” an assertion that existing international laws are perfectly sufficient for working out their territorial disputes in the region. Everything’s cool, no new Arctic treaties are needed—or wanted. Now, would everyone else—like the European Union—kindly butt out?354

These five powers are signaling that UNCLOS is the law of the Arctic Ocean, just like any other ocean. They are heeding its procedures for sovereignty claims to its seafloor, in the same manner as the many other Article 76 claims inching forward around the world. None are interested in relinquishing their existing right to make these claims. There will be no new “Arctic Treaty” with shared international governance, as exists in Antarctica. And centuries of legal precedent tell us that once the boundary lines get set, they will stay set. In Southern California today, property lines set by early ranchos have persisted through centuries of rule first by Spain, then Mexico, then the United States.

So how will it all pan out? The bathymetric and geological data are still being collected, but Russia has the longest coastline and the broadest continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.