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Opinion of the Court
makes a sensible application of other provisions of the Convention impossible. The Convention separately categorizes features that are below mean high water, but above water at low tide. See Art. 11. In addition, under Articles 10(2) and 3, an island's belt of territorial sea is measured from the line of low water. As Dinkum Sands' elevation shifts and the feature slumps toward the mean high-water datum, below the mean high-water datum, and possibly below the low-water datum, the baseline for measuring the surrounding maritime zone would shift and then disappear. Quite apart from the fact that Alaska's proposal would lead to costly and time-consuming monitoring efforts, we agree with the Master that Alaska has identified no precedent for treating as an island a feature that oscillates above and below mean high water.
IV
Alaska's third exception concerns the ownership of submerged lands within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (Reserve), a 23-million acre federal reservation in the northwestern part of the State. The Reserve's seaward boundary runs along the Arctic Ocean from Icy Cape at the west to the mouth of the Colville River at the east. When this litigation began, Alaska and the United States disputed the location of the Reserve's boundary, focusing in particular on whether the boundary followed the sinuosities of the coast or instead cut across certain inlets, bays, and river estuaries. Alaska initially conceded federal ownership of submerged lands within that boundary. In light of this Court's decision in Montana v. United States, 450 U. S. 544 (1981), and with the consent of the United States, the Special Master granted Alaska relief from its concession, and Alaska claimed ownership of submerged lands beneath certain coastal features within the Reserve's boundaries. Order of Special Master in United States v. Alaska, O. T. 1983, No. 84 Orig. (Jan. 4, 1984). A separate proceeding concerning ownership of submerged lands beneath inland navigable waters is pending in
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