Man has scaled the heights but rarely plunged the depths. It is 38 years since that “one small step for a man”, but only yesterday that touchdown was achieved beneath the North Pole. The two Russian mini-submarines that made a soft landing on the yellowish gravel achieved a rare scientific feat, plunging to a depth of 2½ miles beneath the ice to plant a huge titanium flag on the seabed. For Russian television viewers the footage must have brought a rare moment of pride in winning the race to the land beneath the pole. For the Kremlin, much more was at stake. The aim of the Arctic mission was not simply the panache of scientific adventure; it was to stake Russia’s claim to the huge oil and mineral resources believed to lie beneath the polar ice-cap.

The world should salute the intrepid members of the Russian parliament who guided their Mir1 submarine down through 13,980ft to the murky ocean floor. It should also reject the outrageous claim, now being voiced in Moscow, that this has secured for Russia’s use everything that lies beneath the seabed flag. The US Geological Survey estimates that some 25 per cent of world oil reserves are located north of the Arctic Circle, and there is evidence also of coal, gas and numerous other minerals. Unlike the Antarctic, no international treaty bans the exploitation of these riches – largely because it was always thought that the polar ice and the depth of the sea made this impossible. With better technology and the easier access that the melting of the ice may bring, seabed mining does not now look so fanciful. It is therefore time to regulate activity in this sensitive region – and Russia’s expedition was an attempt to preempt any such regulation.

Five countries share borders with the Arctic region: Russia, Canada, the US, Norway and Denmark (though its administration of Greenland). Under international law, each has a 200-mile economic zone around the north of its coastline. Most are trying to extend their rights over sections of the Arctic Ocean floor. Norway and Denmark are carrying out surveys. The US is organising an expedition ostensibly “in search of hydrothermal vents and new biological life” but probably with other more commercial interests in mind. The Russians, however, have been pushing hardest to assert their claims. In 2001 they made a submission to a United Nations commission claiming sub-sea rights to the pole. This year President Putin urged greater efforts to secure Russia’s “strategic, economic, scientific and defence interests” in the Arctic. The current mission is intended to prove that the so-called Lomonosov Ridge is part of a single continental shelf connecting the Arctic seabed and Siberia.

Exploitation of the seabed is largely governed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, negotiated 25 years ago and which came into force in 1994. It has been ratified by Russia but not by the US, which objected to the monopoly that it gives to the International Seabed Authority to organise all mineral-related activities under international waters. If Russia’s claim is recognised, this would give it control of more than 460,000 square miles, almost half the Arctic seabed. But America’s failure to ratify the convention means that it has no seat on the panel that will decide this claim. Until then, the other members must therefore firmly reject it. Underwater adventuring is fine; a blatant land grab is not.