The unique submarine named Kalitka took a soil sample from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, proving that the Mendeleev Ridge belongs to Russia’s continental shelf.
The deep-sea, nuclear-powered ‘Kalitka’ submarine has been
engaged in underwater drilling operations on the Mendeleev Shelf in the Arctic
Ocean, as part of the Arktika-2012 expedition. A source at the
Russian Ministry of Defence told Izvestia that the submarine helped make
adjustments to the drilling operations carried out from the ‘Kapitan Dranitsyn’
and ‘Dikson’ diesel-electric icebreakers, in order to identify the outer bounds
of Russia’s
continental shelf.
“The joint effort resulted in a substantial amount of geological material,”
the source said. “More than 500 kilograms of classifiable rocks were selected.
The results of the survey will underlie Russia’s
application to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, to
allow extension of Russia’s
continental shelf – the initial application having been rejected because of a
lack of geological evidence – and grant Russia
the priority right to develop the deposits located on the shelf.”
Referring to the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, he
stated that the Mendeleev Ridge and the Lomonosov Ridge had combined oil and
gas reserves of more than 5.5 billion tonnes of oil equivalent.
The expedition explored the entire ridge, drilled three wells at two sites
and collected soil samples. Kalitka operated at a depth of 1.5-1.9 miles for a
period of 20 days. Powered by a nuclear reactor and equipped with a unique titanium hull, the submarine is able to stay in deep water much longer than
battery-powered civilian bathyscaphes.
“We are in need of such machines. Besides Losharik [a nickname given to
Kalitka due to its peculiar shape], only ‘Mir’ deep-sea stations are capable of
working at depths of 2-3 kilometres (1.2-1.9 miles). We used both Mir stations
during the previous expedition led by Artur Chilingarov. But the operations we
performed recently were even more complicated and took more time. Mir stations
can’t support themselves that long, so we decided to use Losharik,” the
Izvestia source said.
According to a representative of the Ministry of Defence, a Mir station uses
batteries that can last 72 hours underwater, while Kalitka is a full-scale
submarine with a nuclear reactor that secures it a few months of self-contained
operation. Losharik has a recreation room for its crew, workrooms and a
kitchen. The air and water regeneration systems are as good as those installed
in spacecraft.
“The Mir stations are pleasure bathyscaphes rather than research machines –
they have weak manipulators with limited mobility, and you can’t install
deep-sea sounding equipment on them,” the Ministry of Defence representative
said.
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