According to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Article 76 coastal states can extend their continental shelf under certain conditions beyond 200 nautical miles gaining rights to resources on and below the seabed.
Since 2003, GEUS has managed the Continental Shelf Project of the Kingdom of Denmark, which had the task to collect, interpret and document the necessary data related to a submission the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Work has been performed in five areas: one area in the Arctic Ocean, two areas of South and North-East Greenland and two areas north-east and south-west of the Faroe Islands. The project finished with the submission of a claim to the continental shelf north of Greenland in December 2014.
GEUS has primarily been involved with acquisition, processing and interpretation of seismic, bathymetric and geological data together with other data acquired within the project or open file data from other sources. GEUS has been responsible for the preparation of all documents related to the submissions. Since 2016 and for the years to come GEUS has received funding for further investigations related to UNCLOS, maintenance of the data within the project, general advice and scientific presentations.