USA (4.69 M sq mi), France (3.93 M sq mi), Australia (3.5 M sq mi),
Russia (2.97 sq mi), UK (2.62 M sq mi) and New Zealand (2.59 M sq mi) :
Russia (2.97 sq mi), UK (2.62 M sq mi) and New Zealand (2.59 M sq mi) :
these six countries maintain sovereign rights over more marine area than other nations,
due to their lengthy coastlines or empire-building pasts—or both, in the case of the United States.
due to their lengthy coastlines or empire-building pasts—or both, in the case of the United States.
From National Geographic
America has had two great ages of exploration.
The one that every schoolchild learns about began in 1804, when Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their epic journey across North America.
The other one is just beginning.
During this new age of exploration we will go farther than Lewis and Clark and learn the secrets of territories beyond even Jefferson’s wildest imagination.
Yet it seems safe to say that most Americans don’t know anything about it.
Few realize that the single largest addition to the American domain came on March 10, 1983, when President Ronald Reagan, with the stroke of a pen, expanded the country’s sovereign rights 200 nautical miles from its shores “for the purpose of exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing natural resources.”
By establishing an exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Reagan roughly doubled the area within United States boundaries, as Jefferson had with the Louisiana Purchase.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants all coastal countries sovereign rights to the areas extending 200 nautical miles beyond their coasts, known as the exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
These watery properties contain abundant natural resources: large oil and gas reserves, valuable minerals, and teeming fisheries.
So does the seabed beyond, where countries can make additional claims if they can prove that the continental shelf stretches past the underwater border of their EEZs and meets other criteria set by the convention.
So does the seabed beyond, where countries can make additional claims if they can prove that the continental shelf stretches past the underwater border of their EEZs and meets other criteria set by the convention.
Robert Ballard’s Exploration Vessel Nautilus and the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration’s Okeanos Explorer are in the midst of a
long-term program to discover what riches lie within America’s EEZ—and
perhaps beyond.
Other countries have increased their jurisdiction over natural resources through EEZs and are eager to add more.
Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the United States has not joined, countries can claim sovereign rights over a larger region if they can prove that the continental shelf—the submerged portion of a continent—extends beyond their EEZ and meets certain other conditions.
The United States potentially has one of the largest continental shelves in the world.
Bob Ballard looks out to sea from the research ship Knorr.
"I have the luxury of having my own trust and having my own ship. I'm a 13th-generation American. I've got exploration in my genes. It just seemed like something that ought to be done. If the government wasn't going to do it, then the heck with it, I was going to go do it."
Photograph by David McLain, National Geographic
Photograph by David McLain, National Geographic
A lot is at stake.
Just like the land that Lewis and Clark explored, the ocean floor contains natural resources, many of them untapped.
Vast oil and gas deposits lie under the waves.
So do hydrothermal vents, where copper, lead, silver, zinc, and gold have been accumulating for hundreds of millions of years.
By some estimates there are more than 100,000 seamounts containing minerals critical for national defense.
That’s not all that lies beneath.
These watery zones encompass fisheries that nations rely on for sustenance, shipwrecks that may reveal lost chapters of history, and habitats that need to be preserved as marine sanctuaries.
Ocean explorer Robert Ballard takes us on a mindbending trip to hidden worlds underwater, where he and other researchers are finding unexpected life, resources, even new mountains.
He makes a case for serious exploration and mapping
(TED conference 2008)
Most of the U.S. EEZ hasn’t been explored.
In 1803, with the territory from the Louisiana Purchase newly in hand, Jefferson instructed expedition leader Lewis to “take observations on ... the soil & face of the country, its growth & vegetable productions ... the mineral productions of every kind ... volcanic appearances [and] climate as characterized by the thermometer.”
Reagan did not follow Jefferson’s example.
To this day we have better maps of Venus, Mars, and the far side of the moon than we do of much of underwater America.
But now it’s time for a new epic journey.
Last June the United States’ only dedicated ships of exploration launched a joint, concentrated effort to find out what lies within the country’s EEZ.
3-D depiction of Bear Seamount, with Physalia Seamount in the background.
Both ships use multibeam sonars mounted on their hulls, which enable the creation of maps in three dimensions.
Follow Dr. Robert Ballard and his team as they explore the ocean on the E/V Nautilus.
Watch live video 24 hours a day on NautilusLive.org.
Although the ocean depths plumbed by these modern expeditions are more remote than the land Lewis and Clark charted, we are in constant communication with oceanographers and other experts on shore.
The moment a discovery is made, scientists can step aboard either of the two ships virtually, take over operations, and share findings in real time with a plugged-in world.
This is a voyage of discovery everyone can make.
Links :
- National Geographic : Robert Ballard's new mission is to map and explore the U.S.'s ocean boundaries.
- Nautilus Live : Explore the ocean LIVE with Dr Robert Ballard and his Corps of Eplorers aboard E/V Nautilus
- GeoGarage blog : The last dive? Funding for human expeditions in the ocean may have run aground / Evidence Noah's Biblical Flood happened, says Robert Ballard
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