Published on March 5th, 2014
0‘Doomsday Vault': Seed bank that will protect the world’s biodiversity
The Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the North Pole, lies a seed bank designed to ensure planet’s biodiversity, in the case of disaster. In this building, called the ‘Doomsday Vault’, 800,000 seeds of crop plants are already stored.
For six years, researchers have brought here from around the world, seeds of crop and various other crops in over 100 countries.
These samples will be protected in the event of a natural disaster or man-made product, ensuring biodiversity.
Here are deposited seeds from other gene banks in the world, and the storage is free.
The building was nicknamed ‘Doomsday Vault’, cost five million pounds and can withstand a nuclear war.
The tunnels are up to 125 meters inside the mountain.
Here, behind the four rows of closed doors, there are three domes, which can accommodate a total of about 2 billion seeds.
Because Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located under a mountain covered with ice, the plants will be protected and preserved even in the absence of electricity and even if the power will be interrupted for a while.
In 2011, after the devastating tsunami in Japan, the Japanese authorities sent here 575 duplicate samples of seeds after the gene bank Barley Germplasm Centre at Okayama University was not considered safe.
Source: The Independent
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