Probing Question: What is seed banking?
Friday, April 30, 2010 - 14:31
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Nearly 1,000 kilometers north of Norway stands an impressive vault. Dug deep below the permafrost into solid rock, so far north that four months out of the year the sun doesn`t shine, the vault contains some of mankind's most precious resources, preserved at a constant minus-8 degrees Celsius. What lies inside? Gold? Irreplaceable art or fundamental human knowledge? No. These treasures are tiny, modest, unassuming: seeds. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is home to nearly half a million specimens from around the world and the most well-known example of a practice called "seed banking."