ce030706.xml

The Norwegian Government has unveiled the final design for a vault that will house seeds from all known varieties of food crops found on Earth. Dubbed the Doomsday Vault, the Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built 120 m into a rocky mountainside on Spitsbergen, one of four islands that make up Svalbard, near the North Pole.

The site was chosen, in part, because the ground is perpetually frozen, providing natural back-up refrigeration that would preserve the seeds should the electricity supply fail.

Locating it 130 m above current sea levels should also protect it from possible flooding.