US extends claims on ocean floor in Arctic, Bering Sea

The US extended its claims on the ocean floor by an area twice the size of California, securing rights to potentially resource-rich seabeds at a time when Washington is ramping up efforts to safeguard supplies of minerals key to future technologies.

The so-called Extended Continental Shelf covers about one million square kilometres (386,100 square miles), predominantly in the Arctic and Bering Sea, an area of increasing strategic importance where Canada and Russia also have claims, according to Bloomberg.

The US has also declared the shelf’s boundaries in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.

The claims come as Washington seeks to boost access to so-called critical minerals that are necessary for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy projects, industries the Biden administration has tagged as key national security concerns.