‘Scramble for the oceans’: how countries are racing to name and claim remote parts of the seabed

Newly ‘discovered’ underwater topographical features are paving the way for nation states to exploit previously untouched marine resources

“The sea does not belong to despots,” Jules Verne wrote in 1869 in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. “Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at 30 feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears.”

Now, more than 150 years later, geopolitics experts are warning that Verne’s final sentiment, expressed as it was through the character of Captain Nemo, was wrong. From seabeds and sea caves to sea canyons, underwater ridges, seamounts, sea knolls and reefs, academics say countries around the world are using the politics of nationalism to permanently stamp their mark on the topography of the ocean.