The Seabed in the High North – How to Address Conflicts?

ARCTIC, 2002

The Beaufort Sea Conference 2000 brought together a diverse group of scientists and residents of the Canadian Beaufort Sea region to review the current state of the region's renewable resources and to discuss the future management of those resources. In this paper, we briefly describe the physical environment, the social context, and the resource management processes of the Canadian Beaufort Sea region. The Canadian Beaufort Sea land area extends from the Alaska-Canada border east to Amundsen Gulf and includes the northwest of Victoria Island and Banks Island. The area is defined by its geology, landforms, sources of freshwater, ice and snow cover, and climate. The social context of the Canadian Beaufort Sea region has been set by prehistoric Inuit and Gwich'in, European influence, more recent land-claim agreements, and current management regimes for the renewable resources of the Beaufort Sea.

Coastal Research Library

The aim of this book series is to disseminate information to the coastal research community. The Series covers all aspects of coastal research including but not limited to relevant aspects of geological sciences, biology (incl. ecology and coastal marine ecosystems), geomorphology (physical geography), climate, littoral oceanography, coastal hydraulics, environmental (resource) management, engineering, and remote sensing. Policy, coastal law, and relevant issues such as conflict resolution and risk management would also be covered by the Series. The scope of the Series is broad and with a unique cross-disciplinary nature. The Series would tend to focus on topics that are of current interest and which carry some import as opposed to traditional titles that are esoteric and non-controversial. Monographs as well as contributed volumes are welcomed.

Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin, 1969

The North Sea Basin is one of the most fertile marine environments in Europe. Its relatively shallow seabed, cool-temperate climate and winter storms ensure rapid recycling of nutrients, while the presence of land masses on three sides and large rivers draining extensive catchments, such as the Thames, the Rhine and the Elbe, bring additional inputs of nutrients from land. The geographical limits of the Basin are defined to the west by the coastline of Britain, to the east by the coastlines of southern Norway, western Sweden and Denmark, and to the south by the coastlines of northern France, the Low Countries and Northwest Germany. To the north, there is a broad opening to the North Atlantic, and to the coastlines of northern Norway and Iceland. To the south there is a much narrower opening through the English Channel to the Bay of Biscay and the southern Atlantic, and to the east a narrow connection between Denmark and Sweden to the progressively more brackish waters of the Baltic (Figure 1). With populous countries on every side, the North Sea Basin is also vulnerable to the pressure of human demand on its marine resources. In the past century, and especially in recent decades, it has become a byword for overexploitation of its fish stocks. Historical records suggest that the productivity and abundance of cod (Gadus morrhua) and herring (Clupea harengus) was much greater than today, but the accuracy or wider relevance of these records is unclear (Jackson et al. 2001). Certainly the present-day stocks of some major commercial fish are under serious threat, and a complete ban on fishing for cod has recently been advocated to avoid regional extinction. Given the acute and, more recently, chronic impacts on marine ecosystems of human activities, knowledge of the frequency and scale of past impacts on marine life is not only historically informative, but is also crucial for assessing the current crisis facing ocean fisheries. The rim of the North Sea Basin has witnessed continuous occupation throughout the last 10,000 years with a succession of communities and cultures, who have variously interacted around its perimeter or across an east-west axis through colonization, trade, conquest, and competition for resources. The 'natural' baseline against which to judge present-day impacts is poorly known. Moreover, it was almost

Antiquity, 2018

Archaeological evidence from the submerged North Sea landscape has established the rich diversity of Pleistocene and Early Holocene ecosystems and their importance to huntergatherer subsistence strategies. Comparatively little of this evidence, however, dates to the Late Glacial, the period when Northern Europe was repopulated by colonising foragers. A human parietal bone and a decoratedbovidmetatarsusrecentlyrecovered from the floor of the North Sea have been datedtothiscrucialtransitionalperiod.They are set against the background of significant climatic and environmental changes and a major technological and sociocultural transformation. These discoveries also reaffirm the importance of continental shelves as archaeological archives.

ARCTIC, 2012

The political situation of the Arctic still remains unstable. In the past decade, a combination of the specific regulations of the Convention on the Law of the Sea and the phenomenon of Arctic ice-cover shrinkage have produced a significant increase in the political activity of some of the countries interested in the region. It is commonly thought that the roots of the Arctic conflict lie in the abundant mineral resources, particularly petroleum and natural gas, that lie under the Arctic seabed. By analyzing geological data on the location of oil deposits and by taking into account the technological and macroeconomic conditions that must be fulfilled in order to exploit them, it is possible to conclude that the exploitation of these deposits will most likely not be attempted in the areas under dispute in the coming decades. This conclusion suggests that the motives behind the Arctic conflict are political, and not economic.

The submerged prehistoric landscapes of the North Sea, and the archaeological sites on them, represent a common European cultural heritage, but also one that is of world-wide significance. It is from the North Sea margin that the earliest evidence of a pre-modern human presence in northern Europe has been obtained; and the region was inhabited, and also served as a pathway for human migration, for many hundreds of thousands of years. This rich, and exceptionally well-preserved, archeological resource is increasingly threatened by off-shore activitities, including aggregate extraction, wind-farm construction, hydrocarbon exploitation and fishing, besides natural processes of erosion. Due to effective collaboration with industry, combined with the requirements of the EU 'Strategic Environmental Assessment' and 'Environmental Impact Assessment' Directives, there is now a flood of new information. However, archeologists now need to stand back, to consider how future research and management should be directed. This document is a first attempt towards that. Cohen & Gibbard contribution includes up to date chronostratigraphical chart and palaeogeographical scenario maps for the southern North Sea.

2015

The deepwater horizon oil spill in the summer of 2010 shocked the whole world. any attempt to downplay its impact was thwarted by the proximity of the coast, which gave the lie to the reassuring remoteness suggested by the oil drilling rig’s name. as beaches in the gulf of Mexico became contaminated with oil, visual evidence of the extent of the ecological catastrophe was broadcast by the international media. The damage was not confined to the beaches close to the source of pollution but also affected the vulnerable ecosystem of the Mississippi delta. Rare plants, birds and amphibian creatures as well as the fisheries and tourist industries of the states bordering the gulf of Mexico suffered from the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil escaping over thr e months from the rig’s underwater leak. This ecological disaster not only highlighted the dangers of offshore drilling and the ecological vulnerability of our shores; it also showed how interconnected various littoral spaces – coas...

International Journal of Climatology, 2002

Primitive Tider, 1970

2004

The story of Siglufjörour (Siglufjordur), a north Iceland village that became the Herring Capital of the World, provides a case study of complex interactions between physical, biological, and social systems. Siglufjörour\u27s natural capital - a good harbor and proximity to prime herring grounds - contributed to its development as a major fishing center during the first half of the 20th century. This herring fishery was initiated by Norwegians, but subsequently expanded by Icelanders to such an extent that the fishery, and Siglufjörour in particular, became engines helping to pull the whole Icelandic economy. During the golden years of this herring adventure, Siglufjörour opened unprecedented economic and social opportunities. Unfortunately, the fishing boom reflected unsustainably high catch rates. In the years following World War II, overfishing by an international fleet eroded the once-huge herring stock. Then, in the mid-1960s, large-scale physical changes took place in the seas...

Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 1996

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Netherlands Journal of Geosciences, 93 (1-2), 2014

This paper discusses the significance of the southern North Sea for research on the human occupation of northwest Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Recent insight into the survival of post-LGM land surfaces and palaeolandscape structures points to the potential preservation of Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites in this area. Finds of well-preserved materials (including artefacts of bone, antler and wood, as well as human remains) from various zones along the Dutch and British coasts corroborate this idea, whilst underwater excavations of eroding sites at Bouldnor Cliff (UK) and Maasvlakte-Rotterdam (NL) underpin the possibilities of gaining further insight into human behaviour in the context of submerging landscapes. Although the significance of the southern North Sea with regard to the Mesolithic is gradually exposed, there is still a lot to learn. The terrestrial archaeological records from both sides of the present-day North Sea yield indisputable evidence for hunter-gatherer presence from at least 13,000 BP. Successions of Magdalenian/Creswellian/ Hamburgian, Federmesser Gruppen and Ahrensburgian people (re)colonised the northwest European plain, interrupted by short-lived cold spells. Although it is expected that the southern North Sea must have been inhabited, and maybe even more intensively than the present-day dry land, archaeological evidence is still missing. Despite the presence of vast amounts of mammalian remains and the availability of many radiocarbon-dated bones, there is a striking lack of material post-dating the LGM and pre-dating the Holocene, whilst remains dated to the early Upper Palaeolithic show no evidence of human interference. At this stage, it is probable that taphonomic factors and research biases are responsible for this picture. This marks a sharp contrast with the early Holocene record, where numerous Mesolithic artefacts, as well as human remains, provide evidence for human occupation of the area. Materials are exposed on the sea floor, evidencing gradual erosion of early Holocene land surfaces. Although the number of sites is increasing, little is known yet about how the submerged record can be connected to the terrestrial record. Indeed, the central question here is how the submerged Mesolithic record compares to, or differs from, the terrestrial record. In order to answer this question, targeted archaeological research is needed, along with an understanding of taphonomic processes and increased insight into landscape dynamics. From a northwest European perspective, the present state of knowledge about the submerged post-LGM prehistoric archaeology of the southern North Sea demonstrates its huge research potential.