Seeds Will Be Planted Deep In Permafrost for Security

摘要

Humankind's agricultural heritage will be safeguarded in a pair of caverns to be excavated this summer from frozen rock inside a mountain in Europe's northernmost territory. The Svalbard International Seed Vault will store 3 million seed samples of nearly every food crop in the world at minus 18℃, maintained at that temperature by permafrost, requiring little energy and protected from human threats. Completion is scheduled for September 2007, and the vault will open in late winter 2008.