82 



Unilateral actions have been taken by coastal nations to assert juris- 

 diction, establish territorial boundaries, and claim exploration and ex- 

 ploitation rights in offshore areas. In the United States, these activi- 

 ties began with the Truman Proclamation of 1945 which claimed the 

 natural resources of the seabed of the continental shelf as appertain- 

 ing to the United States and subject to its jurisdiction and control. 

 In 1953, the Submerged Lands Act set the seaward limit of state bound- 

 aries as three miles, but did not define inland waters or continental 

 shelf lands beyond the three-mile limit. The Outer Continental Shelf 

 Lands Act of 1953 claimed for the United States rights of jurisdiction, 

 control, and power of disposition of the natural resources of the con- 

 tinental shelf, but left the seaward limits of the shelf undefined, and 

 preserved the character of the overlying waters as high seas. 



The Geneva Conventions of 1958 sought to resolve several problems 

 pertaining to the seabed and the overlying waters. The Conventions 

 established criteria for measuring the territorial sea and the con- 

 tiguous zone, but left undefined the outer limits of the continental 

 shelf. The Convention on the Continental Shelf aggravated the prob- 

 lem further by establishing the 200-meter depth as the recommended 

 limit, which could be expanded beyond that depth to where the depth 

 of the superjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the natural 

 resources of that area. In other words, it proposed that the boundaries 

 of the continental shelf of a coastal state would be determined by 

 the technological capabilities of that state to exploit the resources in 

 deeper waters. 



But What are these resources, and what exactly is their present and 

 prospective value? What is the present state of offshore technology, 

 and what lies ahead for future exploration and exploitation of the sea- 

 bed? 



Ocean resources are classified broadly as li\dng and non-living. The 

 living resources include the living organisms of the marine environ- 

 ment for products such as food, food derivatives, and pharmaceuticals. 

 Tlie non-living resources provide such varied opportunities for use. as 

 the production of potable water from the sea, the salts and other min- 

 erals contained in the water, the minerals on and under the ocean floor, 

 and such related activities as shipping and aquatic recreation. 



Although this study encompasses the living resources of the sea, it 

 focuses on the seabed and the resources contained in, on, and under 

 it. The seabed contains a variety of mineral resources including beach 

 sands and sfravel, hea^^ minerals associated with beach deposits, sur- 

 face deposits of manganese and phosphorite, and subsurface petroleum 

 resources. 



Building materials are the most extensively mined commodity 

 throughout the world, mostly at or near the beaches. Current pro- 

 duction in the United States alone exceeds 50 million cubic vards of 

 sand and gravel, and 20 million tons of oyster shells annually. Asso- 

 ciated with beach sands are such heavy minerals as gold, tin, platinum, 

 diamonds, titanium, tungsten, iron, chromite, and zircon. Surface 

 deposits of phosphorite and manganese nodules blanket! he ocean floor. 

 The continental shelves of the world contain an estimated 300 billion 

 tons of r)hosphorite ; if 10 percent of this amount is economic to mine, 

 the 30 billion tons of reserves of sea-floor phosphorite (worth some- 

 thing like $300 billion) would last 1,000 years. 



