The Arctic Circle, generally recognized as a barometer of climate change, recently became a safety net for the world’s food crops.

Inside a frozen mountain on the island of Svalbard, about 500 miles from the North Pole, the Global Crop Diversity Trust has opened a vault capable of holding tons of seeds in some 4.5 million samples. Scientists see the vault as a safeguard against disaster when seed collections in existing seed banks are destroyed. In recent years, some seed banks have been destroyed by war and by flooding.

The vault is designed to keep seeds frozen for centuries and to withstand man-made and natural threats, such as earthquakes or even a direct nuclear strike. It is high enough up the mountain to be safe from catastrophic rises in sea levels. Even if global warming causes the permafrost to start melting, the seeds would be safe for up to 200 years.

At the opening ceremony on February 26, 2008, 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries were placed inside the vault. Included were seeds from varieties of potatoes, barley, lettuce, black-eyed peas, sorghum and wheat.

 More about the vault and its mission is found in worldwide coverage of the opening, including the New York Times article Near Arctic, Seed Vault Is a Fort Knox of Food, with photos and maps, and The Times of London article Doomsday Vault for World’s Seeds Is Opened under Arctic Mountain. Tips for using the news articles in middle school science classes appear in the NSDL Middle School Portal’s blog post  What Are Seed Gene Banks and How Do They Work?