The plate
Presentation renders; photographs follow with the first printing.
The Resource Prize
The Caspian — a legal definition worth billions of barrels
No payment now. A reservation holds your place in the first printing. Pricing is published on this page at opening — the list simply hears first. Once the press opens, plates print to order and dispatch in 2–3 working days.
The pattern
Is the Caspian a sea or a lake? The question sounds scholastic and is worth billions: seas are divided by coastline under maritime law, lakes shared jointly — and the hydrocarbons under the seabed fall differently under each answer. Five states argued the point for a quarter-century after the Soviet collapse before signing a convention that split the difference. The plate draws the water whose name is a negotiation. And yet the prize is not the verdict: whether concentrated resources enrich or curse depends on who governs them, not how much lies underground.
This pattern also governs
- The Donbas — Europe’s most fought-over ground, named after a coal seam
- The Arctic seabed — five flags planted on a melting prize
- The Spratlys — reefs worth nothing — surrounded by fisheries, lanes and seabed worth everything
- The Congo’s cobalt — the curse case — the world’s battery metal, and little of the wealth stays
The living map
Every printed plate carries a small engraved code in the colophon corner. Scan it and the plate opens as a living map — the story, the interactive atlas, the daily challenge — at cartogram.earth/p/resource-prize. Prefer a clean margin? Reserve with the no-mark option and the code ships on the colophon card instead. See the place in the atlas →
Shipping & returns
Printed to order at fine-art plants in the US and EU. Prints ship flat or in a rigid, double-walled tube; framed plates ship boxed with corner protection. Dispatch is 2–3 working days from the press opening. A plate damaged in transit is reprinted free, from a photo — no return postage, no argument. Exact shipping rates are published with launch pricing.
The edition
The Pattern Index is an open edition, printed to order. A cased Portfolio Edition of 250 — all fourteen plates, numbered, with a fifteenth key plate — follows the singles.
