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Greg White ’s awesome photographs of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault , arguably the most authoritative source bank in the world , which is located in the deep , freezing Interior of a sandstone mountain , 810 mile from the North Pole . picture by : Greg WhiteSEE MORE picture OF THIS GALLERY
In 2006 , Norway began to buildSvalbard Global Seed Vault , the ultimate cum banking concern - one that would go all sorts of natural disaster - by building it inside a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen Island , located in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago , about 810 international mile from the North Pole .
The fix was prefer for its Fortress of Solitude - like qualities ( Superman , you may recall , also lived in the Artic ) and the vault is located in an orbit that is not prone to earthquakes , always moth-eaten , and place so far above sea level-430 base - that even if the ice caps melt , the site would remain dry . If the infrigidation system that keep the seeds at 0 ° F were to flush it , it would take several weeks before the burial vault would slowly warm to a still very dusty 27 ° F , as a result of the surrounding bedrock .
Seeds may last from twenty year to hundreds of year , but programme are being made for some of the seeds to be planted and re - harvested so that the seeds in the vault are always viable for planting . Now , if a country ’s come are destroy ( or in a doomsday senario , if in the future , Armageddon get in ) , the come bank vault will have the material to start new crops . Priority has been given to crop that are important for food for thought production and sustainable USDA . Currently , the hurdle holds half a million seed samples and there is elbow room for more than 3 million sample .
This seed savings bank in Norway has been referred to as the " Noah ’s Ark of seeds , " but it is useful even today , without a global catastrophe . Many countries , include Iraq , have lost valuable seed banks , due to war or weather condition - related disasters . And as the mood change , germ Sir Joseph Banks are useful as repositories for varieties that may be able to conform to changing experimental condition . The building was designed by Peter W. Søderman MNAL ofBarlindhaug Consult .
The astonishing photos in theaccompanying slide showwere shot by photographerGreg White , whose book , Svalbard , ( £ 16.50 ) , includes photographs of not just the seed bank building , but also the rest of this beautiful and remote island .
