seed vault

plural seed vaults

1. A place used for storage of seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves or biodiversity elsewhere are destroyed.

   1 more example

   Bored into the middle of a snow-topped Arctic mountain, the seed vault has as its goal the storing of every kind of seed from every collection on the planet. While the original seeds will remain in ordinary seed banks, the seed vault's stacked gray boxes will form a backup in case natural disaster or human error erase the seeds from the outside world.

   2008 February 28, Elisabeth Rosenthal, “In Norway, Global Seed Vault guards genetic resources”, in The International Herald Tribune, →ISSN

   Synonyms: seed bank