[QUOTE="Poontanger, post: 13414120, member: 947714"
]The worlds seed bank , which stores every seed U could think of , from clover to carrot seed, to date palm , is underground in Antarctia, every country in the world has seed in there, that should give us a clue[/QUOTE]
The
seedbank is 120 metres (390 ft) inside a
sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen Island,
[9] and employs robust security systems. Seeds are packaged in special three-ply foil packets and heat sealed to exclude moisture.
[10] The facility is managed by the
Nordic Genetic Resource Center, though there are no permanent staff on-site.
Spitsbergen was considered ideal because it lacked
tectonic activity and had
permafrost, which aids preservation. Its being 130 metres (430 ft) above
sea level will keep the site dry even if the
ice caps melt.
[9] Locally mined coal provides power for refrigeration units that further cool the seeds to the internationally recommended standard of −18 °C (−0.4 °F). If the equipment fails, at least several weeks will elapse before the facility rises to the surrounding sandstone bedrock's temperature of −3 °C (27 °F).
A feasibility study prior to construction determined that the vault could, for hundreds of years, preserve most major food crops' seeds. Some, including those of important grains, could survive far longer—possibly thousands of years.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault officially opened on 26 February 2008.
[2] Approximately 1.5 million distinct seed samples of agricultural crops are thought to exist. The variety and volume of seeds stored will depend on the number of countries participating – the facility has a capacity to conserve 4.5 million. The first seeds arrived in January 2008.
[13] Five percent of the seeds in the vault, about 18,000 samples with 500 seeds each, come from the Centre for Genetic Resources of the Netherlands (CGN), part of
Wageningen University, Netherlands. By 2013, approximately one-third of the
genera diversity stored in gene banks globally was represented at the Seed Vault
FREEZINGS GOOD
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault)
