Leading article: Audacious, thrilling - and deeply dangerous

The age of exploration on our planet, which many assumed had come to an end, seems to have found a new lease of life. Last week, a small fleet - which comprised a scientific research vessel, two mini-submarines and a nuclear ice breaker - set sail from the Russian port of Murmansk. After the ice breaker carved a 125-metre by 10-metre opening in the thick pack ice near the North Pole, the two submarines descended into the freezing waters. Yesterday, one of those submarines planted a Russian flag, in a metal capsule, on the seabed two and a half miles below the Pole. The Russians are comparing the achievement to that of man walking on the moon for the first time.

In terms of audacity and technical skill, it may bear comparison with the 1969 moon landing. Yesterday's journey back was especially perilous. The submarines had to locate the exact spot from which they launched, or be trapped beneath the ice. But there is also a crucial difference. The moon had no realistically harvestable minerals, whereas the Arctic seabed is widely believed to contain oil and gas reserves. It will still be hugely expensive to drill for any oil that is found beneath the Arctic, but high world prices and fears regarding the security of existing reserves means that it is looking increasingly like good value for money.

This mission is part of an attempt by Russia to claim a swathe of territory in the Arctic. International sea laws grant countries an economic zone of 200 nautical miles beyond their land borders. The rest is administered by the International Seabed Authority. But Russia argued before a United Nations commission, in 2001, that waters off its northern coast were an extension of its maritime territory. Its claim is based on the argument that an underwater feature known as the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of the Russian land mass. At the time, this argument was rejected and Russia was told to deliver more evidence. Now it is doing so. But there are competing claims from other countries with Arctic borders. The US, Canada, Norway and Denmark are all mindful that the Russian argument would give it control of more than 460,000 square miles of new territory, almost half of the Arctic.

This is not primarily about exploration; it is about resource exploitation. It is also about politics. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, knows that his nation's status is dependent on its position as an "energy superpower". Success in this endeavour will entrench that status. The whole business is more like the late-19th century scramble for Africa, when the great powers carved up the continent between themselves. But unlike in Africa, this dispute cannot be decided on the basis of first come, first served. In this sense, dropping a Russian flag beneath the Pole is something of a stunt. The Lomonosov Ridge extends as far as Greenland, so at least half the territory in question might just as easily be claimed by Denmark, which has sovereignty in that part of the world. International mediation will be needed.

There is, of course, a bitter irony underlying all this. Access to the Arctic for all these nations has improved in recent years only because of climate change. Higher sea temperatures have caused the Arctic sea ice to withdraw significantly in the summer months, leaving more open sea for shipping. And the oil that Russia and other nations hope to discover beneath the depths will be burned by industry, pumping out yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and thus accelerating climate change. This scramble for new oil sources in the Arctic poses a critical danger to all human societies.

As thrilling as this latest expedition might be, it would have been better for mankind if the Arctic had remained an inaccessible wilderness.