Arctic seed vault largest in the world
The Svalbard “Doomsday” Global Seed Vault is surpassing 500,000 samples to become the most diverse collection of food seeds in history.
Just days after celebrating its second anniversary, the seed vault has this week received thousands of new seeds that will push its collection to more than half a million unique samples, NRK reports.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was established to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds from locations worldwide in an underground cavern built 120 meter inside the permafrost mountains.
The seed vault holds duplicate samples, or “spare” copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in gene banks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises.
