The most valuable things on the floor of the ocean are probably the Titanic and several ship-wrecks with old Spanish coins. There seems to be little else of any worth down with the lanternfish and bristlemouths.
It has occurred to the brainy and the greedy that there is something under those doubloons and it is oil, maybe.
A number of sovereign nations have decided to claim ocean floor right from Antarctica to the Atlantic. Assuming that there could be undiscovered oil and gas fields in places which have never been surveyed, the rule now is "better safe than sorry."
The activity may not be so mad. Brazil recently found what may be the largest oil field discovered in forty years well out to sea off its coast. Ultra-modern drilling techniques will allow Brazil’s oil company to tap beds which are thousand of feet deep.
The effort to lock up rights is reaching a crescendo. According to the Telegraph, "The Law of the Sea allows the maritime powers to claim 200 miles of waters around their islands. They can win an extension to 350 miles if the geology of the seabed fits a set of complex technical conditions."
One of the hopes for driving down oil prices is that their are undiscovered pools under protected lands and deep sea beds. The Saudis may wish that they had used their vast wealth to buy up the oceans.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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