SEED Magazine has a slideshow of images from the recently completed Svalbard Seed Vault, coverage of which is especially timely in light of the rather apocalyptic report (short version: in 2080 DC will feel like South Florida, and might be just as underwater) issued yesterday by the US Global Change Research Program.
The accompanying article, discussing the geopolitics of seed collection, the place of the Seed Vault in The Global Crop Diversity Trust’s globalized network of genetic preservation, and the potential role of crop seeds and genes in mitigating the impacts of climate change, is well worth a read.
[BLDGBLOG coverage of the seed vault from 2007 here and here.]
I thought this was a nifty design feature. They really did think of everything, huh?
“Workers walk up the 93-meter entrance tunnel, which ends in a concave wall; should anyone fire a bomb into the seed vault, the force will be channeled back out at the attacker.”