If the mechanical refrigeration system were to malfunction, the seeds would remain frozen due to the year-round permafrost in the mountain, maintaining an inner temperature of about -5C (23F). The entrance to the vault is on a mountain called Spitsbergen, chosen for a number of factors including its perpetually frozen temperatures.
It will be located on the remote, frigid island cluster of Svalbard, well north of Norway's mainland, 621 miles (1,000 km) into the Arctic Ocean. Norway revealed the design of the vault in February 2007. Its main purpose is to provide diverse crop life in the event that life as we know it disappears. But other uses aside, the design of the vault screams "the end is near." This is definitely a structure built with doomsday in mind. The Global Crop Diversity Trust has named several other uses for the vault, including replacing seeds lost in damage to any of the 1,400 seed vaults around the world, safeguarding seeds for developing countries and spreading general knowledge of the threat to crop diversity (the United Nations puts the percentage of genetic diversity already lost to ecological damage at 75 percent). The vault's purpose is safeguard agricultural biodiversity in the event that nuclear war, climate change, a meteor hit or another Earth-shattering event destroys all current plant life in the world or in a particular region. The Svalbard International Seed Vault, dubbed the "doomsday vault," will house samples of every variety of crop seed available in every country in the world. While some of us are stocking up on duct tape, gas masks and enough bottled water to last through the initial weeks of the end of the world, the government of Norway has partnered up with the Global Crop Diversity Trust to prepare for the event that doomsday leaves some survivors. The length of time that seeds kept in a frozen state maintain their ability to germinate depends on the species.Courtesy The Global Crop Diversity Trust 2006 / Statsbygg Once inside the vault, the samples will be stored at -18C (0F). "The storm brought two feet of water and mud into the bank, and that is the last thing you want in a seed bank." "One example happened in September when a typhoon ripped through the Philippines and destroyed its seed bank," Dr Fowler recalled. The Arctic vault will act as a back-up store for a global network of seed banks financially supported by the trust.ĭr Fowler said that a proportion of the seeds housed at these banks would be deposited at Svalbard, which will act as a "living Fort Knox".Īlthough the vault was designed to protect the specimens from catastrophic events, he added that it could also be used to replenish national seed banks. "We also modelled climate change in a drastic form 200 years into future, which included the melting of ice sheets at the North and South Poles, and Greenland, to make sure that this site was above the resulting water level."īy building the vault deep inside the mountain, the surrounding permafrost would continue to provide natural refrigeration if the mechanical system failed, explained Dr Fowler.
We looked at radiation levels inside the mountain, and we looked at the area's geological structure," he told BBC News. Dr Fowler said Svalbard, 1,000km (621 miles) north of mainland Norway, was chosen as the location for the vault because it was very remote and it also offered the level of stability required for the long-term project.
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