Research Garden DesignBrowse photos, get design ideas & see the hottest plants
Greg White ’s amazing photographs of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault , arguably the most of import seminal fluid banking concern in the creation , which is located in the deep , freezing interiors of a sandstone mountain , 810 mile from the North Pole . Photo by : Greg WhiteSEE MORE picture OF THIS art gallery
In 2006 , Norway began to buildSvalbard Global Seed Vault , the ultimate seed money box - one that would survive all sorts of natural cataclysm - by building it inside a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen Island , located in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago , about 810 miles from the North Pole .
The fix was chosen for its Fortress of Solitude - like qualities ( Superman , you may call up , also lived in the Artic ) and the bank vault is settle in an country that is not prone to earthquakes , always inhuman , and localize so far above sea level-430 feet - that even if the ice crown dethaw , the land site would remain wry . If the refrigeration systems that keep the come at 0 ° F were to neglect , it would take several weeks before the vault would slowly warm to a still very cold 27 ° F , as a effect of the environ basics .
Seeds may last from twenty years to hundreds of years , but plan are being made for some of the semen to be planted and re - reap so that the seeds in the vault are always viable for planting . Now , if a country ’s seminal fluid are demolish ( or in a day of reckoning senario , if in the future , Armageddon arrives ) , the source vault will have the material to go new crop . Priority has been given to crops that are authoritative for food product and sustainable agriculture . Currently , the vault holds half a million semen samples and there is room for more than 3 million samples .
This semen bank in Norway has been mention to as the " Noah ’s Ark of seeds , " but it is useful even today , without a global tragedy . Many state , include Iraq , have lost worthful come banks , due to war or weather condition - related disasters . And as the climate changes , seed camber are useful as repositories for varieties that may be able-bodied to adjust to changing conditions . The construction was plan by Peter W. Søderman MNAL ofBarlindhaug Consult .
The awful exposure in theaccompanying slide showwere shot by photographerGreg White , whose book , Svalbard , ( £ 16.50 ) , include photographs of not just the seed banking concern , but also the rest of this beautiful and outback island .
