Looking ahead to a time when the “freezing land and seas of the Arctic are likely to be getting hotter in terms of geopolitics,” Durham University in the United Kingdom has dawn up a map that plots boundaries, disputed claims, and potential trouble spots.

Martin Pratt of the university’s International Boundaries Research Unit says the map is the “most precise depiction yet of the limits and the future dividing lines that could be drawn across the Arctic region.” Those who might want to draw lines would represent large powerful nations as well smaller ones.

You can download the map free of charge from the IBRU web site at http://www.dur.ac.uk/ibru/resources/arctic

The map follows a series of historical and ongoing arguments about ownership. Disputes can be expected as countries search for new sources of oil, gas and minerals. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that a fifth of the world’s undiscovered, technically recoverable resources lie within the Arctic Circle.

With articles and lesson plans, the September issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears gets down to the rocks and minerals that lie below all that ice and snow. The web site OneGeology strips all earth’s coverings—plants, soils, water, and man-made structures—away to launch the first-ever collection of digital geological maps of the world.

 Earth and computer scientists from 79 countries worked on the global project to make geological maps from every part of the world accessible on the Internet. A web language has been written for geology that will allow nations to share data.  

The prototype OneGeology Portal was launched at the International Geological Congress in Oslo, Norway, on August 6, 2008. It is now available for anyone to view and for OneGeology participants to register their data.

OneGeology, supported by UNESCO and other bodies, is a project of the UN International Year of Planet Earth 2008.

An extra feature of the OneGeology site is a section illustrating the many ways in which geology enriches our lives, from serving as inspiration for art and music to providing place names and other words to our vocabulary. Another section in development, OneGeology4Youngsters, is designed for students under 12 years.

Well inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found vents in the submerged Mid-Atlantic Ridge spewing out water as hot as 570 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the farthest north anyone has seen black smoker vents — so called because it appears as if dark smoke is billowing from them. In fact, the “smoke” is actually iron- and sulfur-rich minerals falling from the plumes of scalding waters shooting from underwater openings, or vents, in the earth’s crust.

The solidified sulfide minerals that accumulate around the vents have created one of the most massive hydrothermal sulfide deposits ever found on the seafloor, according to Marvin Lilley, an oceanographer with the University of Washington and a member of the expedition from the University of Bergen’s Centre for Geobiology in Norway.

 Scientists had not expected to find such active vents in the northern seabeds. Yet, they believe the vent field may have been active for many thousands of years. They spent nearly a decade looking for the vents, mapping the ocean bottom, sampling ocean water for warmth, and lowering optical sensors to detect the chemistry of the water. For a firsthand account of the wonder of finding the vents between Greenland and Norway, go to the expedition web diary for Day 17 at  http://www.geobio.uib.no/View.aspx?mid=1062&itemid=90&pageid=1093&moduledefid=71

Last fall, Iceland established a committee on climate change to guide the government’s policy on environmental issues. This summer the first report was delivered—with predictions of significant changes. For example,

 Farmers will be able to grow wheat and pumpkins by the middle of the century.

 Fish species, such as cod, haddock flounder, halibut, and sole, that have a high commercial value are moving into Icelandic waters.

 By the end of the century, about 80 species of birds will have migrated to Iceland.

 More energy can be produced from waterfalls as glaciers melt rapidly this century.

 Volcanic activity in the Vatnajokull Glacier is expected to increase.

The committee chairman Halldór Björnsson, who presented the report, said, “We expect the warming to continue for the next decades and more significant changes to the environment than what we have seen before. Iceland will look very different with a changed biosphere by the mid-21st century and even more so by the end of this century.”  The committee includes meteorologists, a geologist, a marine biologist and an engineer.

After three million years of being frozen out, mollusks and other marine creatures in the North Pacific will be able to move into the Arctic Ocean thanks to global warming. Researchers from the University of California and the California Academy of Sciences say warmer waters and ice-free conditions will likely allow Pacific species of mussels, barnacles, snails and sea mollusks to spread through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean and on to the North Atlantic.

Marine ecologist Geerat Vermeij and paleontologist Peter Roopnarine found evidence in Greenland fossil records that a similar migration occurred during a warming period more than three million years ago.  

The researchers believe this current warming will bring changes in the composition and dynamics of North Atlantic animals and plants, but not necessarily extinction of the native species. Vermeij and Roopnarine said the effect on fisheries and on the human population is “an open question.” At least, they have warned people who make their living from marine life on the coasts that an invasion is on the way.

The study “The Coming Arctic Invasion” was reported in the August 8 issue of Science magazine.