'US quietly adds areas nearly twice the size of Spain'

‘US quietly adds areas nearly twice the size of Spain’

Last month, the United States expanded its territory by nearly 386,000 square miles, an area almost twice the size of Spain.

This expansion was due to the addition of submerged offshore areas, or extended continental shelf (ECS), in six regions to the country’s total landmass. The US Department of State (DOS) declared this increase, allowing the nation to claim more surrounding ocean-floor territory, a Daily Mail report said.

The regions encompassing the ECS include the Arctic, the Atlantic east coast, the Bering Sea, the Pacific west coast, the Mariana Islands, and two areas in the Gulf of Mexico. The largest ECS area is in the Arctic, while the total ECS regions are about double the size of California.

The Wilson Center, a think tank based in Washington, DC, highlighted the significance of this announcement for securing US territorial rights in the Arctic. The ECS in the Arctic extends north to 350 nautical miles in the east and over 680 nautical miles in the west from the territorial sea baselines of the United States. This extension aligns with the 1990 agreement with Russia over the maritime boundary through the Bering Strait, eliminating the need for future negotiations.

Brian Van Pay, State Department project director, noted that Canada might have overlapping claims, which can be negotiated in the future. The extended continental shelf claim aligns with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provisions. Although the US Senate has never ratified this treaty, the government is now announcing its continental shelf limits after 40 years.

The DOS led the ECS effort through the US ECS Task Force, comprising 14 government agencies. “The continental shelf is the extension of a country’s land territory under the sea,” the DOS stated. “Like other countries, the United States has rights under international law to conserve and manage the resources and vital habitats on and under its ECS.”

Determining the ECS outer limits required extensive data on the seabed and subsoil’s depth, shape, and geophysical characteristics. “Forty missions at sea, going to areas that we’ve never explored before, finding entire seamounts we didn’t even know existed,” said Van Pay. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) collected and analyzed the necessary data, marking the largest offshore mapping effort ever conducted by the United States.

The Wilson Center said, “It has long been clear that the United States has major economic interests in an undersea territory rich in oil, natural gas, minerals and sea life to which it has sovereign rights under the law of the sea as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention.” They also emphasized the milestone’s importance in reflecting US engagement with the law of the sea and advancing major US interests in the Arctic and other regions.

For more news like this visit TOI. Get all the Latest News, City News, India News, Business News, and Sports News. For Entertainment News, TV News, and Lifestyle Tips visit Etimes