Lake Solbjornvannet, Lofoten, Norway
© steinliland
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) from the North Pole.
The facility preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The seeds are duplicate samples, or “spare” copies, of seeds held in genebanks worldwide. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises.
Electric Valentine
Photograph by Øystein Lunde Ingvaldsen
Although they’ve been together for about 4.5 billion years, the sun and Earth still seem to have a downright electric relationship, based on a colorful show of northern lights seen on Valentine’s Day. Above, a short but stunning aurora lights up the sky over Bø in Vesterålen, Norway.
This starts out looking like modern art, and becomes very depressing when you realize what it is…
Industrial by-products at a waste-treatment facility on Langøya Island, Norway, from Through the Eyes of Vikings by Richard b. Haas.
‘EQUINOX AURORAS: Last night, the sun’s magnetic field near Earth tipped south. This opened a crack in Earth’s magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in and fueled a magnificent display of arctic Northern Lights. Thilo Bubek took the picture not far from Tromsø, Norway. “We had some nice auroras,” he says, with what can only be described as Norwegian understatement.’
