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I
INTRODUCTION
There are four ridge like structures on the Arctic Ocean seafloor. These are: the Gakkel, Lomonosov, Alpha, and Mendeleev Ridges.1 Much speculation has recently centered around the Lomonosov Ridge as three major Arctic States, Russia, Canada, and Denmark (via Greenland), are in the process of claiming it as a natural prolongation of their respective continental margin.
As the Lomonosov Ridge is believed to run from Ellesmere Island and Greenland toward the Russia's new Siberian Islands,2 all three States emphasize the legitimacy of their own claim with strong scientific proofs.
The overlapping claims with respect to the Lomonosov Ridge, as well as the outer continental shelves in general, result in a potential dispute in the delimitation process. Understanding and resolving this dispute requires knowledge of multiple disciplines, including legal, geographic, geologic, and politic.
II
DEFINITION OF THE LOMONOSOV RIDGE
The Lomonosov Ridge, discovered by Russian scientists in 1948 and named after the eighteenth-century Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov, is a sliver of continental crust' that separates the Eurasian Basin from the Amerasian Basin; it extends northwards from an area proximate to the continental shelf of Greenland and Canada's Ellsmere Island, passing near but not over the North Pole, and southwards from there to an area proximate to the continental shelf of Russia's New Siberian Islands.4
It is believed that the Lomonosov Ridge originated from the Eurasian continent and was "parked against the western rim of the Barents Sea continental shelf," moved a total of 900 kilometers to the west approximately 64 to 56 million years ago, and is now almost beneath the North Pole.5
As the second largest ridge in the Arctic Ocean,* * 6 the Lomonosov Ridge spans 1800 km from the New Siberian Islands, over the central part of the ocean to Ellesmere Island of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.7 The width of the Lomonosov Ridge varies from 60 to 200 km.8 It rises 3,300 to 3,700 meters above the seabed. The minimum depth of the ocean above the ridge is 954 m.9
III
CLAIMS OVER THE CONTINENTAL SHELF BEYOND 200 NAUTICAL MILES
Claims for the Lomonosov Ridge and continental shelves beyond 200 nautical miles are regulated under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Article 76."' It is commonly...