The United States has unveiled the results of a monumental undersea mapping effort that could add 1 million square kilometers of sea floor—twice the area of California—to its territory. In addition to enabling the U.S. to claim valuable geological and biological resources, particularly in the Arctic, the project has produced a wealth of seafloor data that are fueling a wide range of scientific advances.
The impetus to make the maps, which were released last month by the U.S. Department of State, came from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. One provision of that 1982 pact gives a coastal nation the right to claim sea floor that sits outside its exclusive economic zone, which stretches 200 nautical miles offshore, if it can demonstrate that the territory is a “natural prolongation” of its continental shelf.
Being an “old school” geologist, the phrase, “Extended Continental Shelf,” struck me as a bit odd. By comparison, this is the nomenclature I was taught way back in the Pleistocene:
The USGS has a nice graphic explaining hw the Extended Continental Shelf:
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) the continental shelf is that part of the seabed over which a coastal State exercises sovereign rights with regard to the exploration and exploitation of natural resources, including oil and gas deposits, as well as other minerals and biological resources of the seabed. The legal continental shelf extends out to a distance of 200 nautical miles from its coast, or further if the shelf naturally extends beyond that limit.
Under UNCLOS, the continental shelf evidently now includes the continental slope and continental rise.
Significance of an Extended Continental Shelf
The new mapping could allow the US to claim the seafloor and subsurface resources over the following areas:
Arctic Ocean 520,400 km2
Atlantic Ocean 239,100 km2
Bering Sea 176,300 km2
However, the vast majority of the geological resources (oil & gas) will be off limits to exploration and production.
“Sources/Usage: Public Domain. The 200-nautical mile U.S. exclusive economic zone is shown in dark gray on the map. The USGS CMHRP has collected sediment thickness data for defining the extended continental shelf—the shelf beyond 200 nautical miles—in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans and the Bering Sea (yellow tracks).” USGS
Smaller areas offshore California and the Gulf of Mexico are also now eligible for ECS claims. Whoop-de-do! Obviously, with oil & gas activities largely prohibited in these areas, what geological resources have any value?
Geological Resources
The maps have also shed light on the geologic evolution of ocean basins, identified areas at risk of producing submarine mudslides that could trigger tsunamis, and pointed to potential seafloor mineral deposits.
Scientists from many fields also “piggybacked” on the mapping voyages, obtaining everything from seafloor rock and mud samples to one of the first bits of icelike gas hydrate—a potential energy source—recovered from the Arctic.
We can’t drill for subsurface oil & gas, however we can mine seafloor methane hydrates?
The Real Resources
Federal agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), ultimately spent tens of millions of dollars on nearly 50 mapping cruises, some held jointly with Canada. The ships completed multibeam surveys of 3 million square kilometers of sea floor and conducted acoustic surveys, which use sound to map sediments, along nearly 30,000 linear kilometers.
Meanwhile researchers are feasting on the data. For his 2020 doctoral dissertation, for example, Sowers used an algorithm to sort seafloor features along the U.S. Atlantic coast into habitat types, including mounds and seamounts that may host deep water sponges and corals. Such analyses, he notes, could help U.S. officials identify rich seafloor ecosystems that need protection.
They spent tens of millions of dollars, acquiring 3 million mi2 of geophysical data in order to claim an extra 1 million km2 of territory, evidently to place it off limits to economic exploitation. In conclusion, it truly does appear that their goal was to enable the US to claim more seafloor territory in order to protect if from capitalism.
I couldn’t make this sort of schist up even if I was trying.
That Said… The Science is Way Cool!
Technology and Innovation in Seafloor Mapping
[…]
The USGS designs mapping research programs to address a wide range of topics, and to expand our understanding of deep sea minerals, offshore energy, marine biological habitats, hazards, and more. The USGS uses acoustic techniques to collect detailed information about the seafloor, such as its shape, sediment composition and distribution, and underlying geologic structure and sediment type. Seafloor video, photographs, sediment cores, and other samples are also collected to validate the acoustics and provide a comprehensive foundation for studies of sediment and contaminant transport, landslide and tsunami hazards, gas hydrates, methane and carbon flux, benthic habitat quality, and sediment availability. Managers, policymakers, and other stakeholders use the map products derived from these studies to make informed decisions regarding the Nation’s safety and economic prosperity.
Graphic showing geophysical and sampling systems used to define the seafloor topography, surface sediments, and underlying geology. Sidescan-sonar systems acquire information about the surface of the seafloor, swath bathymetric systems measure the depth, or seafloor topography, seismic sources map the underlying geologic structure, single-beam echosounders map the depth at a point beneath the vessel, and sampling systems collect samples of the seafloor and can be equipped with digital camers and video systems to collect optical images of the seafloor.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) finally held Lease Sale 261. After months of legal battles over the fraudulent habitat claim for a fake whale species, Federal judges forced BOEM to hold the sale and drop all of the unlawful Rice’s whale restrictions.
Lease Sale 261 brings in more than $382 million in high bids
Dec. 20, 2023
Lease Sale 261 reported to be the largest oil and gas lease auction since 2015.
Offshore staff
NEW ORLEANS – The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) reports that Lease Sale 261 generated $382,168,507 in high bids for 311 tracts covering 1.7 million acres in federal waters in the US Gulf of Mexico.
BOEM says that a total of 26 companies participated in the lease sale, submitting 352 bids totaling $441,896,332.
Among the winners were Chevron, BP, Shell, Equinor, Repsol, Woodside Energy, Occidental Petroleum, Murphy Oil, Talos Energy, and Kosmos Energy.
It’s fairly ridiculous how mankind continues claiming stuff that was there long before mankind was and will be there long after…all on someones’s plan to make money…
A person or company that wins an open bidding process is not a “rent seeker”. That is an improper use of the term. In addition the person extracting or bringing a resource to market for whatever profit it has been reliably shown that the profit portion is small regardless of how much they make and that the efficiences they bring to bear on bringing it to market make it valuable for everyone. Win win. This is why we have such a great economy. Complaining about rent seeking and other whining about free markets are not helpful and demostrate a key misunderstanding about markets, wealth and the future well being of man.
Under the authority granted to me in section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. 1341(a), I hereby withdraw from disposition by leasing for a time period without specific expiration the areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) associated with 26 major canyons and canyon complexes offshore the Atlantic coast lying within areas currently designated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as the North Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic Planning Areas. The boundaries are delineated in the attached map and accompanying table of OCS blocks. Both the map and the table form a part of this memorandum. This withdrawal prevents consideration of this area for any future mineral leasing for purposes of exploration, development, or production.
Well, you know about some good buddies of certain US politicians. They designate various extra territorial places with different labels, something along the line of Northern Resource Zone. These US exclusion zones are just to assure that nothing screws up their potential before they can be turned over to the good buddies.
On a different note. I have long thought about using sidescan sonar on the abyssal plains to search for shipwrecks . Any object projecting above the sea bottom ooze must be something that floated into position – like ice rafted blocks – or ships .
When the Vandals sacked Rome in 450 AD reportedly they loaded a whole load of loot on their ships and set sail for North Africa.
Unfortaunately the whole lot sank somewhere to the East of Sicily and presumeably sits on the Medoterranean abusal plain.
Does the US continental sidescan have sufficient density of coverage, and spatial resolution to pick up a 10m x 3m x 1 m object . I know that a petroleum sutvey offshore Ireland located the Lusitania but that is bigger and in shallower water. Certainly full coverage of the abyssal plain would pick up a lot of modern stuff .But would it be cost effective ?
Richard Page
January 11, 2024 2:23 pm
Except that the United States has never ratified the UNCLOS treaty which would enable them to claim these new areas.
Yep. And… What’s the point of ratifying UNCLOS if we’re claiming 1 million sq km of seafloor and subsurface resources simply to protect them from capitalism?
I should have emphasized the UNCLOS status in the post.
There’s lots of U.S. claimed, and many contested claims, for unoccupied islands around the world, originally for their guano deposts. While, for more than a century, the development of (fossil fuel based) chemical fertilizers made the need for many such claims moot, the basis of trade within the U.S.Congress is still chicken guano.
It will be interesting to see what the individual U.S. States do with “their” “new” territories. Mostly more guano, no doubt, but there have been some notable exceptions.
Yes but now the US senate knows exactly what it’s been blocking for nearly 40 years, against advice from the Navy, joint chiefs, state dept and others!
Russia made similar surveys, and as a result the northern part of its continental shelf extends way beyond present limits, almost as far as Canada and past the North Pole. Yikes.
Millions of square miles will be added to already large Russia.
That is probably why the USA never ratified the UNCLOS treaty – it would give Russia rights to the Arctic. As long as they don’t recognise it, it’s a ‘disputed’ area, but the USA also can’t claim any of this new territory either without giving Russia theirs. It is a bit of an international ‘Catch 22’ situation.
When Russia presented its findings in an Arctic Council meeting, based on the same method of analysis used by the US, there was silence by the other members.
Bob
January 11, 2024 2:43 pm
I haven’t heard anything about the Law of the Sea for a long time. What I remember wasn’t good, I thought it was some kind of global government power grab. But like someone else said I don’t remember the US signing on to it.
There’s always part II? It really all depends on what the Biden regime intends to do about it or just how stupid/greedy they get. Ratifying UNCLOS might give Russia it’s claim to the Arctic areas but they can’t do a lot with it while there’s ice over it. On the other hand, not ratifying it keeps the Arctic ‘disputed’ along with all these new areas for the US. Which one has more money attached to it?
Rud Istvan
January 11, 2024 2:46 pm
So the US spent many years and mucho dollars to map ‘new’
extended Continental shelf, which it can only claim under a treaty it did not ratify? Seems pretty useless—just like a lot of other government spending. Rand Paul identified about $900 billion in 2023 alone in his annual porkulus report. Stuff like billions in federal support for California’s bullet train to nowhere.
Yup. It’s your US tax dollars at work. As an interesting aside, the UK (well, the New Labour govt of 1997) did actually sign and ratify the UNCLOS treaty, despite being so hemmed in by other countries that it’s of no damned use to us anyway.
Useless like the money wasted on wind and solar subsidies, like all the ‘efficiency’ standards that lead to useless appliances or overpriced vehicles to complicated to fix – only useful to green freaks who want to tie up civilization in knots so it comes crashing down so the communist proletariat and take over and ‘save’ us. That’s why the survey was funded – to make sure of the regions that they need to lock up.
Hey, back off of the high speed train PORK, Brightline just got 3 billion for the Las Vegas to California higher speed train. I think this about the 5th “high speed train” proposal since I moved to Vegas in 77. Maglev was one proposal. Hyperloop was another, but Musk has apparently mothballed Hyperloop pending his Boring Company developing a really high speed boring machine. I don’t think I want to drive to Cali and pay their gas prices. This will help the LV economy and may save us from needing to build a NEW airport.
My daughter took a week of well deserved vacation. She flew into Orlando to do Epcot for a couple of days then took the Brightline sort of fast train from there to Miami, where she boarded a cruise, then will take the train back to Orlando to fly home. Thru flights are available from Orlando to LV, not to Miami. The Orlando to Miami just opened last year.
She said the train was very comfortable and reasonably quiet. Took less time than driving, less trouble than flying. About 3 hours for 235 miles in FLAT Florida. 80 mph average seems like a NOT high speed train. It only has a top speed of 125 mph.
For short haul flights, that would be only 90 minutes in the air, a high speed train would make more sense.
I flew Toronto – Chicago for several years and I swear I spent more time in the airport than in the airplane.
If I can do 240-250km/h in my car (not a lambo that’s for sure) then trains should be able to go just as fast, and for much longer distances.
If you’re wondering about the 250km/h, note that it can get really boring driving the 2 hours from Hamilton to London ON. 😉
Ron Long
January 11, 2024 3:29 pm
Good posting, David. The issues with Continental Shelf are bad enough, but trying to define Extended Continental Shelf is close to a Liars Contest (Like two lawyers in front of a Judge). Why not utilize Plate Tectonics? Plate boundaries are more documental than resolving sedimentation signals. How many sea floor basalts are source rocks for kerogen? Pleistocene? I went to University in the Pliocene.
Look at the boundary dispute between East Timor and Australia. initially the Aussies tried to claim all the shelf out to the 3000 metre isobath of the Timor trench which is about 3500 m depth, on a specious claim that that trench is a plate boundary – which it is not. It took a lot of pressure to get the to back off on that. The law of the sea was a complete nonsense in that debate and far too many lawyers involved. The end result was that Australia would not concede a median line solution- the only sensible and uniquely defined solution. In the end they refused to discuss the issue of sovereignty but ceded to ET the rights over hydrocarbons contained within the area. The Timorese caved in as it gave them the hydrocarbon royalties that they wanted although probably they should have pushed harder on the sovereignty issue.
Aw maaaaaaaan, jus look at that – a million miles of mud.
One Million Miles.
sighhhhhh
Look look look, Just Look its got Oozes and Turbidities, clay, silt, shale – it’s got the fookin lot
(None too fussed about the sand though – helps with drainage I suppose so better grab some anyway)
Why so excited you ask, it’s only dirt.
and it smells
>>Look above your head – see that high pressure cyclonic system dumping incalculable amounts of bone-dry air upon you, sometimes unbearably hot, else perishingly cold.
see those dust storms, the tornadoes, the cloudburst rains, T-storms frazzling your power-grid and burning your towns, cities and forests.
The frazzled plants, the pitiful yields of sugar – why does it take seven times more fertiliser to grow twice as it did in 1960?
Why do contemporary oranges have 15% of the Vitamin C they had during the 1940’s?
Why have got cancer, diabetes, fatness, chronic depression, alcoholism, junk science, alimony payments, brain-dead politicians and Alzheimer’s disease
That is the Doomsday Machine that will squish you like the proverbial windscreen bug – you’re in pretty grim shape already.
It does have an ‘Off Switch’, this doomsday machine – you can make it go away and thus, Not Be Squished
that would be nice, eh not?
And there it is, one Million Miles of Off Switch. and Ooze. simply epic
Better get there fast – that fugger is picking up speed, is self reinforcing and has the entire world’s ocean pushing it along – the bug may not feel a thing when it hits but neither will The Machine
“Lease Sale 261 brings in more than $382 million in high bids”
I guess this is part of the “subsidies” to O&G the WEF wants stopped./sarc! It’s really buying the right to spend 10s of billions on exploration, development, refining, transport, and pay more than $100 B on taxes to gov. a year! Here’s something from Oil Price in 2011:
“In 2011 the three oil giants mentioned above paid more income tax than any other American corporation. ExxonMobil paid $27.3 billion in income tax, Chevron paid $17 billion, and ConocoPhillips paid $10.6 billion.
These huge sums gave the companies equally huge effective tax rates. ExxonMobil’s tax rate was 42.9%, Chevron’s was 48.3%, and ConocoPhillips’ was 41.5%. These figures are higher than the US federal statutory rate of 35%, which is the highest tax rate in the developed world.
Income tax does not even represent half of the total taxes paid. Last year Exxon also recorded more than $70 billion in sales taxes. and other duties. There’s more!
Some $18B income taxes is paid in US by employees, plus an additional 8.6% of employees salaries is paid as taxes by the employer! But wait, there is more!
A an economic multiplier to the US economy is huge!
“WASHINGTON, July 20, 2021 – The American Petroleum Institute (API) today released a new analysis of the natural gas and oil industry’s impact on the U.S. economy and highlighted its importance to the nation’s post-pandemic recovery. The study, prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and commissioned by API, is based on the latest government data available at the state, national and congressional district level, showing that the industry is a driver of every sector of the U.S. economy and supports 11.3 million total American jobs in 2019 across all 50 states. The industry’s total impact on U.S. GDP was nearly $1.7 trillion 😁 accounting for nearly 8 percent of the national total in 2019.
Oops, payroll was 18 Billion and employee taxes paid to gov was 5 Billion partly subsidized by the employer. Better keep that 1.7 economic spinoff a secret or all those other countries are going to want to have an oil industry!
“To a maximum of 350 nm from the coast/baseline or 100 nm beyond the 2,500 meter isobath, whichever is greatest.”
Two items, ‘comparative’, “greater”. This type of ‘sloppy’ misusage of language always makes me wonder about the quality of the rest of the information being conveyed.
Oh, shut up. No grammar teachers were involved in the drawing up of the treaty, and “whichever is the greatest” would also be correct, so why even bother to comment on the omission of ‘the’ on a graphic where space is at a premium, just to whine about grammar/usage.
No rational sensible person is going to ignore the information provided because of the greater/greatest issue.
It’s actually not sloppy grammar but legal terminology. ‘Greater’ would imply it was a variable and give legal doubt that could be exploited, whereas ‘greatest’ implies an absolute limit with no margin of error. Legal rulings and documents will always use ‘greatest’ for an extent wherever possible to try to avoid ending up in court for the same thing a few months/years down the line.
CO2 increased from 310 ppm to 385 ppm (24%) during the 60 years from 1948 to 2008. Observations indicate this led to a negative radiative imbalance of -0.75 W/m². In other words, increasing CO2 delivered a net cooling effect – the opposite of what the IPCC has claimed should happen
Also, there is “no correlation with time and the strong signal of increasing atmospheric CO2 content in any time series,” which affirms “the atmospheric CO2 increase cannot be the reason for global warming—-
And the punchline…
““The Arrhenius type greenhouse effect of the CO2 and other non-condensing GHGs is an incorrect hypothesis and the CO2 greenhouse effect based global warming hypothesis is also an artifact without any theoretical or empirical footing.””
Nothing. China first presented it’s claim to much of the SCS in 1947, then again afterwards several times. Recently, under international law and UNCLOS, China’s claim violates the same claims brought by neighbouring countries and the freedom of navigation provisions in international law so has not been ratified. China still maintains it’s claim despite the legal rulings against it and the USA keeps sending navy ships through under the freedom of navigation laws.
Bill Parsons
January 11, 2024 10:04 pm
RE: “The legal continental shelf extends out to a distance of 200 nautical miles from its coast, or further if the shelf naturally extends beyond that limit.“
What criterion do they use to determine that the shelf is “naturally extendable…”?
RE: They spent tens of millions of dollars, acquiring 3 million mi2 of geophysical data in order to claim an extra 1 million km2 of territory, evidently to place it off limits to economic exploitation. In conclusion, it truly does appear that their goal was to enable the US to claim more seafloor territory in order to protect if from capitalism.
Is it possible this is international political maneuvering more than domestic? I hosted a guest over Christmas who served as an engineer on nuclear submarines. He claims that Russian subs are more or less constantly plying our territorial waters – and inferred that we are also in theirs. I assume he meant within the 1200 mile territorial water boundaries.
It would seem a bit counterproductive to rigidly enforce such boundaries. Most of Taiwan lies within 200 miles of the mainland China, for example. Does that reinforce their territorial claims?
The same could be said for other waterways used by international vessels but claimed in part by several different countries – the English Channel and the Persian Gulf are two examples. International law puts a dividing line through the middle and allows ships the ‘freedom of navigation’ through the waterway without being stopped or seized as violating territorial waters.
That “new territory” won’t be going anywhere but the U.S. administrations do go, eventually.
The resources will be there when the kids are grown.
[as an aside about the law of the sea, I knew this guy and his parents. He died young.]
In Memoriam: Professor David J. Bederman | by Anthony Clark Arend | Anthony Clark Arend
It’s fairly ridiculous how mankind continues claiming stuff that was there long before mankind was and will be there long after…all on someones’s plan to make money…
What’s wrong with wanting to make money and use resources?
The resources can be utilized without rent seekers deciding the rent should be theirs, thus adding to the resource consumer’s cost.
A person or company that wins an open bidding process is not a “rent seeker”. That is an improper use of the term. In addition the person extracting or bringing a resource to market for whatever profit it has been reliably shown that the profit portion is small regardless of how much they make and that the efficiences they bring to bear on bringing it to market make it valuable for everyone. Win win. This is why we have such a great economy. Complaining about rent seeking and other whining about free markets are not helpful and demostrate a key misunderstanding about markets, wealth and the future well being of man.
such desires are not woke! oh, they want to make money too but not from resources in the Earth, but from enhanced funding and higher taxes
Mine!!!
Permanent has an annoying ring to it…
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/20/presidential-memorandum-withdrawal-certain-areas-atlantic-coast-outer
Well, you know about some good buddies of certain US politicians. They designate various extra territorial places with different labels, something along the line of Northern Resource Zone. These US exclusion zones are just to assure that nothing screws up their potential before they can be turned over to the good buddies.
On a different note. I have long thought about using sidescan sonar on the abyssal plains to search for shipwrecks . Any object projecting above the sea bottom ooze must be something that floated into position – like ice rafted blocks – or ships .
When the Vandals sacked Rome in 450 AD reportedly they loaded a whole load of loot on their ships and set sail for North Africa.
Unfortaunately the whole lot sank somewhere to the East of Sicily and presumeably sits on the Medoterranean abusal plain.
Does the US continental sidescan have sufficient density of coverage, and spatial resolution to pick up a 10m x 3m x 1 m object . I know that a petroleum sutvey offshore Ireland located the Lusitania but that is bigger and in shallower water. Certainly full coverage of the abyssal plain would pick up a lot of modern stuff .But would it be cost effective ?
Except that the United States has never ratified the UNCLOS treaty which would enable them to claim these new areas.
Yep. And… What’s the point of ratifying UNCLOS if we’re claiming 1 million sq km of seafloor and subsurface resources simply to protect them from capitalism?
I should have emphasized the UNCLOS status in the post.
There’s lots of U.S. claimed, and many contested claims, for unoccupied islands around the world, originally for their guano deposts. While, for more than a century, the development of (fossil fuel based) chemical fertilizers made the need for many such claims moot, the basis of trade within the U.S.Congress is still chicken guano.
It will be interesting to see what the individual U.S. States do with “their” “new” territories. Mostly more guano, no doubt, but there have been some notable exceptions.
Yes but now the US senate knows exactly what it’s been blocking for nearly 40 years, against advice from the Navy, joint chiefs, state dept and others!
Russia made similar surveys, and as a result the northern part of its continental shelf extends way beyond present limits, almost as far as Canada and past the North Pole. Yikes.
Millions of square miles will be added to already large Russia.
That is probably why the USA never ratified the UNCLOS treaty – it would give Russia rights to the Arctic. As long as they don’t recognise it, it’s a ‘disputed’ area, but the USA also can’t claim any of this new territory either without giving Russia theirs. It is a bit of an international ‘Catch 22’ situation.
When Russia presented its findings in an Arctic Council meeting, based on the same method of analysis used by the US, there was silence by the other members.
I haven’t heard anything about the Law of the Sea for a long time. What I remember wasn’t good, I thought it was some kind of global government power grab. But like someone else said I don’t remember the US signing on to it.
The US is not a signatory… Which would have to happen before it could even be submitted to the Senate for ratification.
I really should have devoted more of the post to UNCLOS.
There’s always part II? It really all depends on what the Biden regime intends to do about it or just how stupid/greedy they get. Ratifying UNCLOS might give Russia it’s claim to the Arctic areas but they can’t do a lot with it while there’s ice over it. On the other hand, not ratifying it keeps the Arctic ‘disputed’ along with all these new areas for the US. Which one has more money attached to it?
So the US spent many years and mucho dollars to map ‘new’
extended Continental shelf, which it can only claim under a treaty it did not ratify? Seems pretty useless—just like a lot of other government spending. Rand Paul identified about $900 billion in 2023 alone in his annual porkulus report. Stuff like billions in federal support for California’s bullet train to nowhere.
Yup. It’s your US tax dollars at work. As an interesting aside, the UK (well, the New Labour govt of 1997) did actually sign and ratify the UNCLOS treaty, despite being so hemmed in by other countries that it’s of no damned use to us anyway.
Your tax dollars and your children’s tax dollars and their children’s tax dollars, and so forth, as long as there is something claimed to be dollars.
Useless like the money wasted on wind and solar subsidies, like all the ‘efficiency’ standards that lead to useless appliances or overpriced vehicles to complicated to fix – only useful to green freaks who want to tie up civilization in knots so it comes crashing down so the communist proletariat and take over and ‘save’ us. That’s why the survey was funded – to make sure of the regions that they need to lock up.
… proletariat CAN COME take over…
Somebody please bring back the Edit button!!!
Hey, back off of the high speed train PORK, Brightline just got 3 billion for the Las Vegas to California higher speed train. I think this about the 5th “high speed train” proposal since I moved to Vegas in 77. Maglev was one proposal. Hyperloop was another, but Musk has apparently mothballed Hyperloop pending his Boring Company developing a really high speed boring machine. I don’t think I want to drive to Cali and pay their gas prices. This will help the LV economy and may save us from needing to build a NEW airport.
My daughter took a week of well deserved vacation. She flew into Orlando to do Epcot for a couple of days then took the Brightline sort of fast train from there to Miami, where she boarded a cruise, then will take the train back to Orlando to fly home. Thru flights are available from Orlando to LV, not to Miami. The Orlando to Miami just opened last year.
She said the train was very comfortable and reasonably quiet. Took less time than driving, less trouble than flying. About 3 hours for 235 miles in FLAT Florida. 80 mph average seems like a NOT high speed train. It only has a top speed of 125 mph.
More on the California Brightline project.
For short haul flights, that would be only 90 minutes in the air, a high speed train would make more sense.
I flew Toronto – Chicago for several years and I swear I spent more time in the airport than in the airplane.
If I can do 240-250km/h in my car (not a lambo that’s for sure) then trains should be able to go just as fast, and for much longer distances.
If you’re wondering about the 250km/h, note that it can get really boring driving the 2 hours from Hamilton to London ON. 😉
Good posting, David. The issues with Continental Shelf are bad enough, but trying to define Extended Continental Shelf is close to a Liars Contest (Like two lawyers in front of a Judge). Why not utilize Plate Tectonics? Plate boundaries are more documental than resolving sedimentation signals. How many sea floor basalts are source rocks for kerogen? Pleistocene? I went to University in the Pliocene.
That’s because lawyers/politicians got involved instead of geologists!
They spoil everything.
Considering the topic of the article… What do you call 1 million lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A good start!
Look at the boundary dispute between East Timor and Australia. initially the Aussies tried to claim all the shelf out to the 3000 metre isobath of the Timor trench which is about 3500 m depth, on a specious claim that that trench is a plate boundary – which it is not. It took a lot of pressure to get the to back off on that. The law of the sea was a complete nonsense in that debate and far too many lawyers involved. The end result was that Australia would not concede a median line solution- the only sensible and uniquely defined solution. In the end they refused to discuss the issue of sovereignty but ceded to ET the rights over hydrocarbons contained within the area. The Timorese caved in as it gave them the hydrocarbon royalties that they wanted although probably they should have pushed harder on the sovereignty issue.
Aw maaaaaaaan, jus look at that – a million miles of mud.
One Million Miles.
sighhhhhh
Look look look, Just Look its got Oozes and Turbidities, clay, silt, shale – it’s got the fookin lot
(None too fussed about the sand though – helps with drainage I suppose so better grab some anyway)
Why so excited you ask, it’s only dirt.
and it smells
>>Look above your head – see that high pressure cyclonic system dumping incalculable amounts of bone-dry air upon you, sometimes unbearably hot, else perishingly cold.
see those dust storms, the tornadoes, the cloudburst rains, T-storms frazzling your power-grid and burning your towns, cities and forests.
The frazzled plants, the pitiful yields of sugar – why does it take seven times more fertiliser to grow twice as it did in 1960?
Why do contemporary oranges have 15% of the Vitamin C they had during the 1940’s?
Why have got cancer, diabetes, fatness, chronic depression, alcoholism, junk science, alimony payments, brain-dead politicians and Alzheimer’s disease
That is the Doomsday Machine that will squish you like the proverbial windscreen bug – you’re in pretty grim shape already.
It does have an ‘Off Switch’, this doomsday machine – you can make it go away and thus, Not Be Squished
that would be nice, eh not?
And there it is, one Million Miles of Off Switch. and Ooze. simply epic
Better get there fast – that fugger is picking up speed, is self reinforcing and has the entire world’s ocean pushing it along – the bug may not feel a thing when it hits but neither will The Machine
Always great stuff from you David!
“Lease Sale 261 brings in more than $382 million in high bids”
I guess this is part of the “subsidies” to O&G the WEF wants stopped./sarc! It’s really buying the right to spend 10s of billions on exploration, development, refining, transport, and pay more than $100 B on taxes to gov. a year! Here’s something from Oil Price in 2011:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/How-much-Tax-does-Big-Oil-Actually-Pay.html
“In 2011 the three oil giants mentioned above paid more income tax than any other American corporation. ExxonMobil paid $27.3 billion in income tax, Chevron paid $17 billion, and ConocoPhillips paid $10.6 billion.
These huge sums gave the companies equally huge effective tax rates. ExxonMobil’s tax rate was 42.9%, Chevron’s was 48.3%, and ConocoPhillips’ was 41.5%. These figures are higher than the US federal statutory rate of 35%, which is the highest tax rate in the developed world.
Income tax does not even represent half of the total taxes paid. Last year Exxon also recorded more than $70 billion in sales taxes. and other duties. There’s more!
Some $18B income taxes is paid in US by employees, plus an additional 8.6% of employees salaries is paid as taxes by the employer! But wait, there is more!
A an economic multiplier to the US economy is huge!
“WASHINGTON, July 20, 2021 – The American Petroleum Institute (API) today released a new analysis of the natural gas and oil industry’s impact on the U.S. economy and highlighted its importance to the nation’s post-pandemic recovery. The study, prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and commissioned by API, is based on the latest government data available at the state, national and congressional district level, showing that the industry is a driver of every sector of the U.S. economy and supports 11.3 million total American jobs in 2019 across all 50 states. The industry’s total impact on U.S. GDP was nearly $1.7 trillion 😁 accounting for nearly 8 percent of the national total in 2019.
Oops, payroll was 18 Billion and employee taxes paid to gov was 5 Billion partly subsidized by the employer. Better keep that 1.7 economic spinoff a secret or all those other countries are going to want to have an oil industry!
Nit-picking. In the “nice graphic” I see:
“To a maximum of 350 nm from the coast/baseline or 100 nm beyond the 2,500 meter isobath, whichever is greatest.”
Two items, ‘comparative’, “greater”. This type of ‘sloppy’ misusage of language always makes me wonder about the quality of the rest of the information being conveyed.
Oh, shut up. No grammar teachers were involved in the drawing up of the treaty, and “whichever is the greatest” would also be correct, so why even bother to comment on the omission of ‘the’ on a graphic where space is at a premium, just to whine about grammar/usage.
No rational sensible person is going to ignore the information provided because of the greater/greatest issue.
The “sloppy language” is the UNCLOS legal definition of continental shelf, not the USGS or any other geologic/geographic definition.
It’s actually not sloppy grammar but legal terminology. ‘Greater’ would imply it was a variable and give legal doubt that could be exploited, whereas ‘greatest’ implies an absolute limit with no margin of error. Legal rulings and documents will always use ‘greatest’ for an extent wherever possible to try to avoid ending up in court for the same thing a few months/years down the line.
G’Day Richard,
“… legal terminology.”
That’s an explanation I can live with. Thank you.
STORY TIP
New Study Finds No Evidence Of A CO2-Driven Warming Signal In 60 Years Of IR Flux Data (notrickszone.com)
And the punchline…
What does this do for the South China Sea?
Nothing. China first presented it’s claim to much of the SCS in 1947, then again afterwards several times. Recently, under international law and UNCLOS, China’s claim violates the same claims brought by neighbouring countries and the freedom of navigation provisions in international law so has not been ratified. China still maintains it’s claim despite the legal rulings against it and the USA keeps sending navy ships through under the freedom of navigation laws.
RE: “The legal continental shelf extends out to a distance of 200 nautical miles from its coast, or further if the shelf naturally extends beyond that limit.“
What criterion do they use to determine that the shelf is “naturally extendable…”?
RE: They spent tens of millions of dollars, acquiring 3 million mi2 of geophysical data in order to claim an extra 1 million km2 of territory, evidently to place it off limits to economic exploitation. In conclusion, it truly does appear that their goal was to enable the US to claim more seafloor territory in order to protect if from capitalism.
Is it possible this is international political maneuvering more than domestic? I hosted a guest over Christmas who served as an engineer on nuclear submarines. He claims that Russian subs are more or less constantly plying our territorial waters – and inferred that we are also in theirs. I assume he meant within the 1200 mile territorial water boundaries.
It would seem a bit counterproductive to rigidly enforce such boundaries. Most of Taiwan lies within 200 miles of the mainland China, for example. Does that reinforce their territorial claims?
What claim, that China belongs to Taiwan because it’s inside the 200 nau.mi?
That abbreviation doesn’t look right, I agree, but I did put 200nm first, but that is just an ultraviolet 200 nanometres for an old engineer like me.
The same could be said for other waterways used by international vessels but claimed in part by several different countries – the English Channel and the Persian Gulf are two examples. International law puts a dividing line through the middle and allows ships the ‘freedom of navigation’ through the waterway without being stopped or seized as violating territorial waters.