MOSCOW, November 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources said on Tuesday it is discussing with Google a joint project on creating a panoramic map of the Arctic shelf.

“We have held a meeting with representatives of Google, which has three devices for creating a map of underwater world. We offered them to think about one of our underwater objects, a part of Arctic territories. In particular, one can see many animals there,” Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergey Donskoy said.

The minister said an expedition of the national park, the Russian Arctic, the National Geographic magazine and the Russian Geographical Society “has recently received for the first time documented proof of habitation of one of species of sharks in the Arctic waters.”

In March, Donskoy said that the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf recognized an enclave of 52,000 square kilometers (20,080 square miles) in the Sea of Okhotsk as part of Russia’s continental shelf.

Expanding Russia’s presence in the Arctic is one of the key tasks for the country’s authorities. Next spring the Russian government plans to file a request at the United Nations for expanding the borders of its continental shelf.