A silo saves 100 million plant samples in the Arctic.

Translated from spanish Kuno Frommfeld 10/2010

The Svalbard International Seed Vault (SISV), also known as the "doomsday vault", is designed to save samples of all seed varieties known to man.

The goal is to make a Noah's ark, a huge store that contains samples of the plants needed to restart the human being to conquer the Earth if there is an ecological disaster, either by natural causes or by human action.

NOAHS ARK OF THE XXI CENTURY

The Noah's Ark of seeds has been built in Longyearbyen, a small mining town on the island of Spitsbergen, which belongs to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, northern Norway, about 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole. The place has been chosen for its seismic stability and with the permafrost of the Arctic the place provides conservation.

Salvadora. The island of Norway with an Arctic vault to fight especially apocalyptic effects of the climate change.

The Arctic vault is built inside a frozen mountain.

In total, the vault will receive more than 100 million seeds from all over the world.

The seeds are stored in the depths of an Arctic mountain, packed in aluminum, surrounded by walls three feet wide.The vault has a tunnel 125 meters deep, dug into the rock.

Even if all cooling systems failed, the scientists say, the temperature in the mountain would never rise above freezing temperature due to permafrost, the ice life of the region.

Office Protective cover of the tunnel Air chambers

Main hall Storage chambers

Main tunnel reinforcement EntEntrance

The entrance of the vault has a futuristic design with a metallic mirrors that reflect the sun during the day and glow in the dark at night, designed by Norwegian artist Sanne Dyveke. Near the door there are the compressors whose function are to cool the interior of the bunker.

When entering the vault, the first thing you see is a 125 meter long corridor leading to the three stores bunker.

The interior of the passage is reinforced with a steel circular structure to avoid any danger of collapse due to erosion of the mountain.

At the end of the passage, is the control room where technicians register in the vault computer each seed sample that is coming to the bunker from all countries.

The technicians have to classify each sample, specifying the species, origin and age. All information is stored to a website whose content is freely available to the scientific community.

The seed samples are placed in packages with three layers of aluminum that are tightly closed to ensure their preservation in the best possible condition.

After being registered and hermetically sealed, the seed samples were placed in plastic boxes and moved to one of the three chambers of the vault.

After having been preserved in "black boxes" the samples are put into circulation only if all seed sources have been destroyed or exhausted.

Regarding safety measures, the facility is equipped with an armored door and perimeter fencing, and will be attended by Norwegian authorities.

Its officials also cite the remote location of the facility, the incredibly cold winters, ice shelves and even polar bears being aggressive toward humans as additional security measures.

Today, there are

more than 1,000 existing seed banks around the world.

However, many of them, especially in the developing countries, are permanently threatened by water shortages, the risk of earthquakes, floods or other natural disasters, the impact of war or simply because of bad management en facilities.

To address all these dangers, which also should be added the increasing threat of the climate change or the global catastrophe which could lead to nuclear war, Norway has built the Dome. "Our goal here is to keep a backup of the seeds from around the world," says Westengen. "So, against any catastrophe, natural or man, the biodiversity of crops will be safe. The vault is a crucial strategy for ensuring the future of the crops that feed us all."

The conservation of seeds in the vault is a free service, and countries that send their samples will always remain the owners. All of them may use spare copies are preserved in the arctic bunker, provided one of the varieties to disappear from their natural environment.

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