On the Island of Spitzbergen in Svalbards, a remote archipelago 1000km from the NW coast of Norway a doomsday vault is being built. With over 3 million seeds the world seed bank projects aim is to protect the bio-diversity of the planet against natural or manmade disaster. It is managed by the Global Crop Development Trust.
The location was carefully chosen to guard against all eventualities. Built into the rock of a mountain 120m above sea level so it will not be underwater even if the polar ice sheet melts completely. The permafrost of the island should mean the seeds will survive frozen even without electricity, it is remote and guarded by well trained polar bears. The vault itself is 120m long and 4.5m round, with 1m thick concrete walls.
This reminds me a little of a science fiction story I read when I was younger. An alien race recieved a signal from outer space, which turned out to be a blueprint (dna etc) for an organism. It turned out to be human beings. Quite similar to the film Contact but the implications going much further. How soon before we are archiving the entire planets biosystem not just as a collection of frozen originals but as blueprints and plans to be beamed across the solarsystem. The ultimate Doomsday book if you like.
(All images from Statsbygg)
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[...] Arctic Seed VaultThe permafrost of the island should mean the seeds will survive frozen even without electricity, it is remote and guarded by well trained polar bears. The vault itself is 120m long and 4.5m round, with 1m thick concrete walls. … [...]
[...] first world seed ‘doomsday’ vault opens in Svalbard Norway to protect biodiversity (see previous post). There are about 1500 seed vaults worldwide but this is the only one buried under a polar [...]