{"id":47033,"date":"2025-04-27T15:22:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T09:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=47033"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:52:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T10:22:43","slug":"continental-shelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/continental-shelf\/","title":{"rendered":"Continental Shelf"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Continental Shelf Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>India has increased its claim in the Central Arabian Sea, as part of its \u2018extended continental shelf\u2019 by nearly 10,000 sq.km but also modified an earlier claim to avoid a long-standing dispute with Pakistan over the maritime boundary between the two countries.<\/p>\n<h2>About Continental Shelf<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is the\u00a0<strong>edge of a continent that lies under the ocean.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It is the\u00a0<strong>extension of a coastal State\u2019s land territory under the sea<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It\u00a0<strong>extends from<\/strong>\u00a0the<strong>\u00a0coastline of a continent to a drop-off point called\u00a0<\/strong>the\u00a0<strong>shelf break.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>From the break<\/strong>, the shelf\u00a0<strong>descends toward\u00a0<\/strong>the deep ocean floorin what is called the\u00a0<strong>continental slope.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The actual boundary of a continent is not its coastline, but the edge of the continental shelf.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Formation:\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Over many millions of years, organic and inorganic materials formed continental shelves.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Inorganic material built up as rivers carried sediment<\/strong>\u2014bits of rock, soil, and gravel\u2014to the edges of the continents and into the ocean.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>These sediments\u00a0<strong>gradually accumulated\u00a0<\/strong>in layers\u00a0<strong>at the edges of continents.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Organic material,\u00a0<\/strong>such as the remains of plants and animals,\u00a0<strong>also accumulated.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>widths\u00a0<\/strong>of the continental shelves\u00a0<strong>vary<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Most\u00a0<\/strong>continental shelves<strong>\u00a0are broad, gently sloping plains covered by<\/strong>\u00a0relatively\u00a0<strong>shallow water.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>average width<\/strong>\u00a0of continental shelves is about\u00a0<strong>65 km<\/strong>\u00a0(40 miles).\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Water depth over the continental shelves averages about 60 meters (200 feet).\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sunlight penetrates<\/strong>\u00a0the shallow waters, and many kinds of\u00a0<strong>organisms flourish<\/strong>\u2014from microscopic shrimp to giant seaweed called kelp.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ocean currents and runoff from rivers bring nutrients<\/strong>\u00a0to organisms that live on continental shelves.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Plants and algae make continental shelves rich<\/strong>\u00a0feeding grounds for sea creatures.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The shelves make up less than\u00a0<strong>10 percent of the total area of the oceans.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>In some places, deep canyons and channels cut through\u00a0<\/strong>the continental shelves.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Little light penetrates these submarine canyons, and they are sometimes the least-explored areas of continents.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is the Extended Continental Shelf?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Geopolitically, under the<\/strong>\u00a0United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (<strong>UNCLOS<\/strong>),\u00a0<strong>coastal countries have special rights ove<\/strong>r the\u00a0<strong>continental shelf\u00a0<\/strong>for exploring and exploiting natural resources\u00a0<strong>up to 200 nautical miles (exclusive economic zone).<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>In addition\u00a0<\/strong>to this, such\u00a0<strong>States can make claims for more area<\/strong>\u00a0in the ocean\u00a0<strong>provided they can scientifically establish to<\/strong>\u00a0a UN body, called the\u00a0<strong>Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS),<\/strong>\u00a0that this claimed area extends unbroken from their landmass all the way to the seabed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>All of this oceanic area<\/strong>\u00a0is\u00a0<strong>considered part of a country\u2019s extended continental shelf.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This gives them\u00a0<strong>rights to commercially mine for valuable minerals, polymetallic nodules, and oil reserves.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Continental Shelf FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1<\/strong>. What is the difference between EEZ and continental shelf?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. The continental shelf includes only the seabed and subsoil, whereas the EEZ also includes the water column.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2<\/strong>. Which is the largest continental shelf in the world?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. The world&#8217;s largest continental shelf extends 1,500 km (about 930 miles) from the coast of Siberia into the Arctic Ocean.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3<\/strong>. Which is the longest continental shelf in India?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. The Indian state with the broadest continental shelf is Gujarat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/india-skirts-maritime-border-dispute-with-pakistan-by-fresh-continental-shelf-claim\/article69493962.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The continental shelf is the submerged edge of a continent, extending under the ocean and forming a shallow underwater landmass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":47021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[370,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-47033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-continental-shelf","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}