Hydrographic Society Russia

Shelf-2010

On 22 October HSR members took part in the conference devoted to the end of the first stage of works directed at defining and substantiating the continental shelf borders of the Russian Federation at Arctic Ocean.

The conference was opened by the general director of the State Research Institute of Navigation and Hydrography, Ministry of Defence (SRINH MD), the project head, HSR member, rear-admiral (ret.) Sergey Alexeev. He has told about previous researches under this project made in 1998-2008, about complexities of the organisation and carrying out of expedition ‘Shelf-2010' (28 July - 13 October 2010).

The work was carried out for the Ministry of Natural Resources. The main executor was the SRINH MD. The report on the results of expedition ‘Shelf - 2010' was carried out by its head scientist, hydrographer Andrey Zen'kov. He informed that the vessel Academic Fedorov has been carefully prepared for the work. The navigational and hydrographic equipment was modernised with new echo sounder, multi-beam echo sounder, and profilograph, establishing a modern system of the positioning. In addition, two helicopters were at expedition's disposal. He especially noted the significant help by the Finnish and Norwegian experts in equipping the vessel with the modern devices.

On board was a unique collective of scientists and experts. The 72 people came from the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Science, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, exploration company Severneftegaz, companies Atomflot and Hydro-Sea.

On 28 July Academic Fedorov left Arkhangelsk. In the Barents Sea it met the nuclear icebreaker Yama which accompanied it during work in high latitudes amongst the heavy ice fields. The expedition lasted for 78 days. For this time 14,436 miles were traversed and bathymetric survey was executed on 17,079 km: more than 47,500 sq. km was covered with multi-beam survey, 760 km by seismic shooting, depths were measured in 822,802,528 points.

The received data meets requirements of the International standards of the Commission of the United Nations on borders of a continental shelf. After processing, the data will be prepared and submitted to the United Nations.

Andrey Zen'kov paid special attention to fact that 25 % of the expedition team were young experts below the age of 26. They worked closely with highly experienced scientists, showed enviable diligence, purposefulness and resources at problems solving, and contributed substantially to the success of the expedition.

Participants of conference listened attentively and with interest to the report and answers to questions by Andrey Zen'kov and expressed their gratitude to the participants of expedition by their applause.