Doomsday bunker in Norway will now store not only seeds, but also data

At the beginning of this year, the hands of the Doomsday Clock , the movement of which reflects the level of danger of nuclear war and other threats, moved forward 30 seconds. Explaining their decision, the representatives of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists made the following statement: “The probability of a global catastrophe is extremely high, therefore, measures that will reduce risks should be taken in the near future. Heads of state must act now to save humanity from falling into the abyss. If they don’t do anything, citizens must take action. ”

Some citizens are already taking these measures, only in this case it is not about actions directed against a nuclear war, but about measures taken to preserve especially important values ​​for those who will survive in a possible cataclysm. We are now talking about the “Doomsday Vault” (Svalbard Globale frøhvelv), which is located on the island of Svalbard. For safe storage, seed samples of the main crops are placed in it. And now the team of this project is going to store in this place the most important data for humans.

More than 1.5 million seeds are already in the storage, and soon millions and billions of bytes of information will appear. The small Norwegian company Piql is archiving and transporting data to Svalbard. Its representatives suggested using not ordinary storage media such as laser discs, but a special film that can remain unchanged for hundreds of years. The film wound on bobbins will not be stored in open form, but in special boxes, which, in turn, will be protected from external factors.



This medium will be preserved for so long thanks to the features of the storage itself. It is located at a 120-meter depth at an altitude of 130 meters above sea level in the village of Longyearbyen. The entrance is equipped with explosion-proof doors and lock chambers. The safety of materials is ensured by refrigeration units that can operate on local coal, plus permafrost. Refrigeration units maintain a temperature of -18 degrees Celsius. Even if they fail, the temperature will rise only a few degrees.

As for the information carrier, the film, in this storage it will be protected from the effects of a nuclear attack due to the large storage depth. By the way, about 42 countries have signed an agreement on the creation of a demilitarized zone in this region, so there are no nuclear or other weapons on the island. In addition, the entire archive is not connected to anything, you can only get to the films physically.

Information on media developed by Piql can only be written once. After that, they can only be read without the possibility of change. Thus, according to the developers, the data is reliably protected from possible attempts to erase information or overwrite something.

Three countries have already begun sending information that representatives of these states consider important to the repository. These are Norway, Mexico and Brazil. Among other data, states transfer the most important documents from national archives to tape. “By doing this now, we are providing access to this information for future generations,” said Ricardo Marquez, head of the National Archive of Brazil.



The representative of the National Archives of Mexico agrees with him: "I am sure that we must preserve the memory of our country on the Arctic island."

Data is saved not only in the event of a global cataclysm. The fact is that in a particular country or region some events are always possible that can lead to damage or destruction of the most important archival documents. Local conflicts, floods, earthquakes - this is only part of the external factors that pose a danger to critical information of national interest to individual countries.

Piql was founded in 2002. Initially, it provided devices for watching digital movies in movie theaters with analog equipment. After that, using its own funds, the support of the EU and the Norwegian organization Innovation Way, the company began research in the field of digital data storage. Company representatives considerthat a special film can be a more reliable storage medium than hard drives or anything else. The film passed the test with simulated conditions of 500 years of wear using high temperatures.

The developers are sure that the film is able to keep the data recorded on it unchanged for a longer period - up to 1000 years. Additional tests will be conducted in the near future to verify this assumption.