Russia has new evidence to expand the territory of the Arctic shelf. Scientists from Novosibirsk were able to confirm that its individual fragments once constituted a single whole, namely, the ancient continent of Arctida, which was replaced by the modern Arctic. Prior to this, the existence of the continent was considered a hypothesis.
“These individual elements ended up forming a single picture, a single supercontinent, which we call Arctida.
The dotted line shows the territory within which the remains of that continent may be located.
Franz Josef Land, the Svalbard archipelago, the shelf of the Kara Sea and the New Siberian Islands - all of this used to be one continent. Until recently, the existence of Arctida was only a scientific hypothesis, which was confirmed by Russian scientists from Novosibirsk. The research is published in the prestigious international journal Precambrian Research.
For twenty years, scientists traveled on expeditions to the islands of the Arctic Ocean, where they collected rock samples, the study of which made it possible to confirm the assumption that they were all one before.
“As a matter of fact, this device records all the main characteristics, that is, measures the direction of the ancient magnetization that has been preserved in the rock,” says Nikolai Mikhaltsov, senior researcher at the Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics.
“And we see all this in the process of working with the sample, we see its characteristics, according to which we can reconstruct at what latitude and how the block was oriented from which it was actually drilled.”
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Russian experts managed to prove that the continent of Arctida existed twice with a difference of five hundred million years. Initially, it was believed that after the collapse of the continent, the relief acquired its modern appearance.
But recent studies have shown that 250 million years ago, parts of the continent reunited, and only after the second disintegration, the outlines that still exist were formed.
“We must know how our land developed, how it was transformed in different historical periods,” says Professor Mikhail Epov, director of the Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics of the SB RAS.
The discovery of Novosibirsk scientists is not only of fundamental importance for science, but can make it possible to claim a free shelf zone of the Arctic Ocean.
“These studies can really be used to substantiate an application to international authorities related to the expansion of the Arctic shelf, the territory of the Russian shelf,” says Dmitry Metelkin, professor at the NSU Department of General and Regional Geology. -
If we prove that the structure of the modern continent on our territory has a continuation, if we prove it, then we have the right to claim that these territories should be part of the Russian Federation."
And if thanks to scientific discoveries it is possible to prove its right to use part of the free shelf, then Russia will have new places for rich in energy resources: oil and natural gas.