MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Thursday granted "hero" awards to scientists backing Russia's claim to a mountain range under the Arctic Ocean that is believed to contain huge oil and gas reserves.
The scientists planted a Russian flag under the North Pole ice in August as part of an Arctic expedition that heated up the controversy over the area which a U.S. study suggests may contain as much as 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.
Russia is one of several countries that have laid claims to the area.
Putin signed a decree awarding three members of the expedition with the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. They are legislator Artur Chilingarov, Anatoly Salagevich and Yevgeny Chernyayev. A fourth expedition member, Vladimir Gruzdev, was granted the Order for Service to the Fatherland, the Kremlin said.
Russia's Natural Resources Ministry has said preliminary results on soil core samples gathered by the expedition show that the 2,000-kilometre Lomonosov Ridge under the Arctic is part of Russia's shelf. It said more geological tests would be conducted, as well.
After the Russian expedition, Canada vowed to increase its icebreaker fleet and build two new military facilities in the Arctic, while Denmark sent a team of scientists to seek evidence that the ridge was attached to its territory of Greenland. The U.S. government also sent an icebreaker for a research expedition.
The issue has become more urgent with growing evidence that global warming is shrinking polar ice - opening up resource development and new shipping lanes.
The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea gives the Arctic countries 10 years after they ratify the treaty to prove their claims under the largely uncharted polar ice pack. All but the United States have ratified the treaty.
Chilingarov, a renowned polar scientist, was awarded as a Hero of the Soviet Union in the 1980s after leading an expedition aboard a research vessel that was trapped for a time in Antarctic sea ice.
