The seabed scramble continues

Whilst Norway, Russia, Denmark, Canada and the USA argue about how to divvy up the seabed of the Arctic, the UK is part of the rush to grab potential seabed resources too, as this from the Telegraph reports.

"officials are watching with a mixture of awe and suspicion as Britain and France stake out legal claims to oil and mineral wealth as far as 350 nautical miles around each of their scattered islands across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans."

"The forgotten relics of the Empire make Britain a player in the marine race. There are the waters off the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, already home to a clutch of oil exploration companies; the Pitcairn Islands in the Pacific; Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; and a string of outposts such as Montserrat, the Caymans, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos, and Bermuda."

As far as I recollect, Ascension Island is an extremely tall underwater volcano that has only the very top sticking out of the water; so it sounds like some extremely deep drilling technology is going to be required! Oh well, Big Oil makes the world go round, and Big Oil gets what it wants most of the time, as well as having the money to finance ridiculously deep exploration rigs.

But, to me, this is all rather sad, and highly indicative of one of humanity's basic instincts, Greed!