Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: The final design for a "doomsday" vault that will house seeds from all known varieties of food crops has been unveiled by the Norwegian government. The Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole. The vault aims to safeguard the world's agriculture from future catastrophes, such as nuclear war, asteroid strikes and climate change. Construction begins in March, and the seed bank is scheduled to open in 2008. The Norwegian government is paying the $5m (£2.5m) construction costs of the vault, which will have enough space to house three million seed samples. The collection and maintenance of the collection is being organised by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity". "We want a safety net because we do not want to take too many chances with crop biodiversity," said Cary Fowler, the Trust's executive secretary. "Can you imagine an effective, efficient, sustainable response to climate change, water shortages, food security issues without what is going to go in the vault - it is the raw material of agriculture." The seed vault will be built 120m (364ft) inside a mountain on Spitsbergen, one of four islands that make up Svalbard.

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. "We looked very far into the future. We looked at radiation levels inside the mountain, and we looked at the area's geological structure," he told BBC News. "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."

View: Full Article | Source: BBC News

at least now I know where to run if sh** happens...

I don't like the idea of putting all of that in one building. Fire can easily damage that.

Yeah, spread it out a little.

Another question, what about us humans? I know we probably caused it, but surely some safegaurds for us should be put in place, like a nuclear bunker or something, just to keep the species alive.

This sounds like a strange idea to me. Seeds are a naturaly resilient "vault" of plant life. They can withstand quite a bit of punishment. How bad are these people thinking the world is going to be destroyed and yet still have people around to plant these seeds? Maybe this is just for the elite, who will all be in their own bunkers. As far as "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity", most of what we eat in America is made of corn. But anyway, this sounds very strange to me.



It unlikely that fire would be a problem. These bunkers are carved out of stone with only a few flamable materials are used to finnish the insides (which would be largely done with concrete). I guess the seeds could burn I wouldnt worry about it. I think what you should worry about is why they think they need a seed vault in the first place. When the squirrels start burying nuts, its because they know winter is coming.



They have plenty of them. But they are not for you or I.

Yeah, this is what i thought. Preperation maybe. Or Paranioa.

they should do this with animal dna

Somehow, I think if the world gets screwed up so bad that entire plant species are completely wiped out on a massive scale, then genetic engineering is not something that will be practiced for a long time.

Whatever they stick in their doomsday bunker, will be for the privileged elite who are given space in other bunkers and survive "doomsday".