What It's Like Inside The Doomsday Vault That Stores Every Known Crop On The Planet

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^{Source: The Crop Trust}

Since the vault is buried in permafrost, it could stay frozen at least 200 years, even if the power were to go out.

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^{Source: Reuters}

The vault has seeds from more than 60 institutions and almost every country in the world, collected from the more than 1,500 global gene banks that store samples of seeds from all the crops native to the region they're in.

^{Source: The Crop Trust}

Backups are sent to Svalbard in case a disaster ruins the samples at the home seed bank.

^{Technicians at CIMMYT sort samples of wild maize seeds, known as Teocintle, at the center in Texcoco, on the outskirts of Mexico City.AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo}

^{Source: The Crop Trust}

That way, the genetic diversity of crops around the world is kept safe.

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^{Source: The Crop Trust}

The rooftop and part of the facade of the building is a work of art with a light installation by Dyveke Sanne, since all public buildings in Norway are legally required to have art.

^{Source: The Crop Trust}

There are five doors with coded locks that anyone looking to get into the vault has to pass through.

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^{Source: The Crop Trust}

Plus, The Crop Trust says that polar bears — which outnumber humans on the island — provide an extra "layer of security."

^{The warning sign says "Applies to all of Svalbard territory."REUTERS/Bob Strong}

^{Source: The Crop Trust}

The temperature inside is kept to -18 degrees Celsius, cold enough to keep the sealed seeds viable for — in some cases — thousands of years.

^{Source: The Crop Trust}

So far, there are more than 860,000 samples in the vault, collected since Svalbard opened in 2008. Each sample contains 500 seeds.

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^{Source: The Crop Trust}

But there's enough space in the vault's three main rooms to store 4.5 million samples, which would be more than 2 billion seeds.

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^{Source: The Crop Trust}

The seeds arrive sealed in foil and are kept inside sealed boxes to prevent any spoilage.

^{A seed sample is filled at a center in Texcoco, on the outskirts of Mexico City.AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo}

^{Source: The Crop Trust}

In 2015, the ICARDA Seed Bank, which had been in Syria, withdrew samples from the vault — a first — so it could move and restore its seed bank, which had been damaged by war.

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^{Source: Tech Insider}

That showed that the vault could serve its function, but hopefully there will be no need for another withdrawal in the near future. "It illustrates why we built it," Cary Fowler tells my colleague Lydia Ramsey. "Loss of that collection would be irreplaceable. ... I tell people it's a great story — a sad story — of the seed vault functioning as an insurance policy."

^{AP Photo/John McConnico}

^{Source: Business Insider}

Read the original article on Tech Insider. Copyright 2016.

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