Somebody put me back in the fridge.
Posted on 06/19/2006 7:21:37 AM PDT by presidio9
Norway has began construction of a "doomsday vault", a vast top-security seed bank in a mountain near the North Pole to ensure food supplies in the event of environmental catastrophe or nuclear war.
Built with Fort Knox-type security, the depository will preserve some three million seeds representing all known varieties of the world's crops at sub-zero temperatures.
"This facility will provide a practical means to reestablish crops obliterated by major disasters," Cary Fowler, executive secretary of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said in a statement.
He said crop diversity was imperilled not just by a cataclysmic event, such as a nuclear war, "but also by natural disasters, accidents, mismanagement, and short-sighted budget cuts.'
Surrounded by permafrost and rock, the seed samples, such as wheat and potatoes, will be stored at a temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius (minus 0.4 Fahrenheit), which will ensure their survival for hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years.
Dubbed a "Noah's Ark" of plant life by the Norwegian government, the seed bank is expected to open in September 2007.
Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg took part in a groundbreaking ceremony at the construction site on Monday.
Guarded by an armed police officer ready to fend off the polar bears that roam the Svalbard archipelago, 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the North Pole, Stoltenberg symbolically placed a tube filled with seeds at the site.
"The vault is of international importance. It will be the only one of its kind, all the other gene banks are of a commercial nature," Stoltenberg said in comments reported by Norwegian news agency NTB.
Norway financed the construction project, estimated at three million dollars (2.4 million euros), and is charged with running the vault, but the seeds placed inside will remain the property of the country of origin.
In an interview with AFP, Fowler underlined the importance of preserving the world's plant life.
"At the end of the 1800s, 7,000 named apple varieties were grown in the United States. Now, 6,800 of those are as extinct as the dinosaurs," he said.
"What we will store on Svalbard is not just one or two million seed samples and germ plasm, but the work of countless generations of farmers for thousands of years. Our crops are the oldest artefacts in the world, they are older than the pyramids, and they are alive," he said.
A meter of reinforced concrete will fortify the chamber walls. Arctic permafrost will act as a natural coolant to protect the samples which will be stored in watertight foil packages should a power failure disable refrigeration systems.
The thick walls, airlocks and doors mean that even if global warming accelerates badly, it would take many decades for hotter air to reach the seeds.
"It will ultimately house replicates of every known crop variety, as well as have ample capacity to accommodate new variation as it arises naturally," according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
Some of the 1,400 gene banks scattered around the world are in developing countries and could come under threats such as famine, natural and man-made disasters.
While the seed banks' status varies greatly, many are in dire straits, the Trust said, threatening the survival of some of the world's unique crop varieties.
"Yet agriculture worldwide relies on these collections of crop species and their wild relatives. They are vital to the development of new varieties, without which agriculture would grind to a halt.
"We need viable collections of crops like wheat, potato, and apple in areas where they originated and are still grown today," Fowler said.
"The Arctic vault and other collections around the world will make sure that the resources will be there when and where they are needed."
Norway must have lots of extra money to waste right now with oil prices high.
Ok. I see.
Now, suppose there is some type of worldwide catastrophe. Who opens the vault? How are the seeds dispersed? How does one determine which countries receive how many seeds? What if the soil, after this big bad day, is no longer arable?
Sounds like a nice try, but after the thin veneer of civilization is shattered by some awful, worldwide event, I don't think the old seed vault is going to help much.
Some archeologist will stumble on this in 5,000 years and it will be the Roseta stone for them.
Happy it's being done.
Even happier that it's being done with someone else's money.
Uh huh.
And what are you going to grow your seeds in after a nuclear war contaminates the air, soil, and water?
No, some future Geraldo Rivera will find it like Capone's vault, expecting great wealth inside because of the "Fort Knox-type security", and will only find "a bunch of Go*-dammed seeds!!"
"And what are you going to grow your seeds in after a nuclear war contaminates the air, soil, and water?"
The worst only lasts a few years, really, despite what all the enviro-wackos say.
After 50 or so, the Earth (seas, in particular) would absorb most, if not all, such that humankind could limp by OK, with some more cancer in their 40s, etc.
This is designed to hang around for several hundred.
Maybe so, MWT.
But we're gonna get awfully hungry before then!
Somebody put me back in the fridge.
What they were building, or why it should be located in a such a remote and desolate place, no one could say."
Maybe so, MWT.
But we're gonna get awfully hungry before then!
Near the North Pole??????????
The north pole is all ocean - frozen mind you - but all ocean.
If near means 500 miles.
This isn't the first seed bank. If it got so bad that the seed bank would be needed, it would be so bad that nobody would know what to do with the seed bank even if they knew about the seed bank.
If they really want this vault thing to work, they'll have to put in an espresso machine.
http://newsroom.msu.edu/site/indexer/672/content.htm
News Release
120-YEAR-OLD EXPERIMENT SPROUTS NEW GARDENING KNOWLEDGE
Michigan State University Division of University Relations
7/25/2000
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Old seeds - really old seeds - may grow into answers for farmers, gardeners and others, thanks to the world's longest continuous experiment on seed germination.
Researchers at Michigan State University are growing and examining seedlings that have sprouted from seeds buried 120 years ago on campus. They've been doing this roughly every five years since 1879, when William Beal, a professor of botany at what then was Michigan Agricultural College, buried them in anticipation of learning how long seeds can remain viable.
It's more than just a curiosity, explained Frank Telewski, curator of MSU's Beal Botanical Garden.
This information explains why there are so many weeds which can germinate in a freshly plowed field," Telewski said. "Plowing also mixes fresh seed into the deep seed bank. This information is also of interest to plant ecologists who study regeneration of disturbed land from existing seed banks in soils. If a site is disturbed by fire, flood, wind or any thing else, vegetation can recover from the existing seeds in the soil, which can remain viable for years. The area doesn't need to have seeds blown in or carried in from other vegetated areas."
The 20 clear glass bottles containing 50 seeds of each of 20 different kinds of plants were mixed with sand and buried in the Beal Garden 20 inches below the soil with the mouths slanting downward so that water would not collect in them. A map was left diagramming their location for future scientists.
The bottles were dug up by Telewski and Jan (pronounced Yan) Zeevaart, a professor of botany and plant pathology.
The original plan was to dig up a bottle every five years to test the seeds. However, in 1920, it was decided to change the interval to 10 years to prolong the study. Then, in 1980 the interval was extended to 20 years.
The Beal experiment represents the oldest continuing experiment at the nation's oldest college of agriculture.
The bottle of seeds dug up in April of this year has yielded only one species of plant -- Verbascum blattaria, a weed commonly called moth mullein.
"In 1980, there were three species which germinated," Telewski said. However, the fact that moth mullein is the only one to survive the test of 120 years is not unexpected. "It is the only plant to consistently germinate in all of the tests. It will be very interesting to see if the seeds will still germinate 20 years from now."
Five of the original 20 seed-containing bottles buried by Beal remain in their hidden location on the MSU campus. The slumber of the seeds will remain undisturbed for another 20 years until 2020, the 140th anniversary of Beal's experiment.
Seed storage facility is modern-day Noah’s Ark\
April 17, 2003
Writer: Sharon Omahen
http://georgiafaces.caes.uga.edu/pdf/1837.pdf
"The USDA-ARS plant germ plasm system includes a main seed storage facility in Fort Collins, Colo., and repositories like the one in Griffin in Geneva, N.Y.; Pullman, Wash.; and Ames, Iowa. Collectively, these facilities serve as a modern-day Noah’s ark for crops worldwide."
Reminds me of "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke, the 1956 Hugo Winner for Short Story.
There is people growing crops in mineshafts with artifical light.
As long as we don't have a mineshaft gap we will be alright.
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