• SL needs specialists, leadership cognisance and statecraft to engage on key issues and reach national objectives

This is Part I of a two-part series. The second part, will be published in an upcoming issue of The Daily Morning

The Seabed has drawn the attention of the world, because despite knowing the space and skies better, comparatively what we know of the seabed is very less. The seabed has been the least explored part of our planet earth. What lay on the seabed has been the subject of curiosity and as the competition for resources is in demand, naturally the focus is on the ocean. The explorations and modern seabed exploration in global scale in particular, can be attributed to the Challenger expedition in 1872-76. This was the first global scale scientific experiment conducted in all the oceans and the finding was revealing and rewarding.

This two-part series will look at the seabed in Bay of Bengal (BoB) and in the Laccadive Seas with coverage to the Gulf of Mannar. These are the three oceanic spaces directly related to our national interests. This island State shares the Gulf of Mannar on the western seaboard with India’s south State of Tamil Nadu, whilst the eastern seaboard adjoining the Bay of Bengal. The southern coastline borders the Laccadive seas. The seabed of these three oceanic spaces hold variations and potentials that are directly related to the island State’s economic benefits. The International Indian Ocean Expedition from 1 September 1959 to 31 December 1965 paved the way for major marine science players to engage and have a baseline understanding of what is there on the seabed of the Indian Ocean.

Demarcation of continental margins

The first part of this two-part series will be looking at the outer continental margin to which Sri Lanka submitted the claim in 2009 as the 43rd State to do so. Sri Lanka’s submission is entirely based on the Statement of Understanding (SoU) of part three of the UNCLOS. The continental margin gives sovereign rights only to the seabed, not to the water column. Thus, the whole purpose of the demarcation of the Continental margin is the economic developments and sustainable exploitations of the seabed resources. The submission of Sri Lanka is based on the technical parameters allowed for a coastal state thus encompassing a significant portion of the Bay of Bengal. The seabed of the BoB is very thick with sediments and these sediments lead to formation of natural gases as one source of resources. However, the depths of the water are the challenge and today technology is fast developing to explore and exploit these seabed’s with remotely-controlled vehicles connected with flexible hoses to withstand the immense pressure at the seabed. The pressure itself creates many other sources of harvestable materials in the form of manganese nodules and polymetallic nodules. 

   Whilst the sediment accumulation forms sources of economic value the volcanic activities of the seabed create another type of resources of high-end economic value. The Bay of Bengal is bordered to an undersea ridge line named as the 90 Degree East ridge and is the creation of tectonic movements. These undersea volcanic activities create cobalt deposits and high-end mineral accumulations.

Flagship prog.

The Seabed 2030 initiative by Nippon Foundation-GEBCO came in as the flagship programme of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development to map the seabed better and comprehensively so that the globe knows what it contains and what will be the sustainable management. The Sri Lankan Government is committed to this global initiative and the Laccadive Seas being the interface for high-salinity Arabian Sea and the low-salinity BoB, almost exclusively lay within Sri Lanka’s maritime jurisdiction. 

There are several undersea ridge lines of importance in the Indian Ocean. The more prominent undersea ridgelines are in the southern part of the Indian Ocean and are named as the Central Indian Ocean Ridge, Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge, Southeast Indian Ocean Ridge. The Central Indian Ocean Ridge is connected to Carlsberg ridge in the western Indian Ocean. Then there is a long ridge line of Ninety-East (named because it is roughly along the 90 Degree East Longitude) which is of significance to Sri Lanka despite the ridge falling within the Indian Maritime jurisdiction originating from the Andaman Nicobar Islands of the BoB. This ridgeline traps the sediment flow coming down from the rivers from Bangladesh and India thereby making the sediment thickness reportedly of 14 Km tapering down as they come down in BoB towards south.  

Then there are isolated sea mounts that has being discovered and identified, from the Afanasij Nikitin seamount (named after the Russian explorer), Carlsberg Ridge (Named after Denmark’s Carlsberg Foundation's Oceanographic Expedition around the world (1928–1930), better known as the 2nd Dana Expedition), Comorin Ridge, Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, Eighty-five East Ridge etc. The website GEBCO Gazetteer gives a comprehensive view of seamounts and ridges of the Indian Ocean region for anyone to understand the spread and locations. One conspicuous feature is the growing discoveries by the Chinese oceanographic explorations from 2000 onwards where a number of seamounts are freshly discovered and named under Chinese identification tags. This illustrates why India is concerned about Chinese research vessels in the Indian Ocean and at same time indicate the vast oceanic space we yet to know well.

Despite Indian scientists having done extensive research on undersea ridges for their formation and contents, in comparison with Chinese discoveries on the seabed of the Indian Ocean, there are hardly any new identifications on the seabed. The focus it seems are two; one for analysing what is there in these seabed mountains and the other being to map the features correctly to have a composite picture of the Indian ocean as a whole.

Already both China and India have secured seabed mining licence for the undersea ridges in the southern part of the Indian Ocean along with Republic of Korea and Germany. All these are available to be studied in the International Seabed Authority (an institution created under UNCLOS) website for any interested party to have a preliminary understanding. These licensing under today’s geostrategic posture has become a competition that already is a major political issue for the small island States in the Pacific. Therefore, being an island nation in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka can not remain ignored of these developments and this makes the necessity to represent at International Seabed Authority in Jamaica through a permanent professional rather than the present practice of representing only at the annual summit through the Permanent Mission in New York. Time has come that Sri Lanka must work to secure its national interests rather than looking to save money by ignoring the seabed.

SL concerns

Sri Lanka’s claim for the outer edge of the continental margin encompasses sediment rich BoB and seamounts to the southern delimiting lines. The area is still too deep for exploitation and exploration, but the technology is fast catching up to meet the industrial and economic demands of extracting the resources from the seabed. The hydrocarbon and natural gas deposits are further under the seabed, and they are being identified through seismic surveys. This is where the data is of value for all, more the data more will be the interpolation and interpretation. For example, when Sri Lanka’s latest drilling in 2011 identified two natural gas deposits at bore-sites identified as Dorado and Barracuda at water depths of 1.3 Km and 1.5 km, the natural gas deposits were at the depths of 3km and 4 km respectively from the sea surface. Both these demonstrated the potential of the island nation and the necessity to own high resolution data for analysis, as this analysis may take months to interpret and analyse. 

Sri Lanka’s claim under SoU for the BoB area needs to have a collaborative approach with the countries bordered to the BoB to finalise the neighbouring countries' consent before the Commission of the Limit of Continental Shelf (CLCS) approves the claim. Whilst India reserved their rights to make the second submission based on SoU, Sri Lanka will be making the second submission based on Article 76 for the seabed adjoining the Maldivian region. These demand a very clear understanding of the technical details as well as the spirit of drafting the UNCLOS. Thus, Sri Lanka soon will have to embark on a cordial negotiation process with India, Maldives, Bangladesh and even Myanmar to secure national interests amidst the geopolitical competition to explore the seabed of the Indian Ocean. These demands sound technical knowledge as well as top notch statecraft to engage, steer and accomplish this island State’s due lead in the oceanic space.

The second part of the article will be focusing on seabed resources within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) where this island State enjoys the sovereign rights for both living and non-living resources.

(The writer is the former Chief Hydrographer of the Navy and the Joint Chief Hydrographer of the Government with over 25 years of hydrographic experiences and practise. He has been consulted by the UN and foreign Universities for Maritime Security/Affairs and has chaired the North Indian Ocean Hydrographic Commission)

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication