The ice lid on the Arctic Ocean continues to melt. At summer's end, sea-ice coverage was one-third smaller than the average from 1979 to 2000. With the loss of ice, the seabed's natural resources become potentially more obtainable and its bordering nations more interested. Martin Pratt, director of research at the International Boundaries Research Unit at Durham University in England, has already seen evidence of that interest. This year, he and his team produced an online map of the Arctic maritime jurisdictions and boundaries that in a mere three days had been downloaded more than 42,000 times.
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