Creating The EarthArk is the most moral thing humanity can do.

Tags

Human morality, morality, Survival of humanity, Your moral obligation

Humanity as a whole has a primary responsibility of providing for the preservation of humanity in the present and on into the future. As a species we have been phenomenally successful. Our problem now is that we have been too successful as seen in our enormous population explosion. Our success has been based on our fabulous consumption of one-time-use natural resources, such as oil, but it cannot be sustained permanently because the oil, gas and coal will be burned up in about one hundred years, and also pollute the atmosphere. That destruction of our essential energy resource base will soon lead to the collapse of our civilization and perhaps demise of nearly all humans, but there is hope.

Anthropologists tell us that 50,000 years ago there were approximately 7,000 humans, and now we have about 7,000,000,000, or a million times more people now than then. That fact proves the phenomenal success of our species. It would be wonderful if the Earth would sustain us permanently at our present level, but it can’t, and so there will be an environmental collapse. Sorry, I don’t like it either! But, before the collapse, generally called Doomsday, we can make some preparations for those people who do survive, and we can make it possible for them to restore the Earth to its present condition, and possibly even a little better. The reason it could be better is because humans can learn, and they will be able to learn from our present mistakes, and not repeat them. They would see that the Earth will support a smaller number of people than we presently have and be able to do it permanently. They will choose to live in a beautiful world, if given the opportunity, and The EarthArk is the way to provide future humanity an opportunity to achieve that heavenly future.

People of the future must be given the tools to reconstitute the Earth that we are now destroying, and when a major war finally comes we will almost totally destroy it as the comfortable place we presently enjoy. As a responsible and forethoughtful species we must see the placing of the EarthArk not as a gift but as a moral obligation. Because, if we do not provide for the preservation of the living things upon which all things, including humans, depend and need to survive we will in effect be killing them. By not acting, and creating an EarthArk we will be practicing human genocide on a far more massive scale than has ever been achieved. What a horrible outcome, and we living people will be responsible for this tragedy.

The plan for humanity’s survival is simple; it is to store samples in permanent cold storage of all the species presently living. If we store the seeds of the natural world in a deep freeze they will be available and viable in the future, to revivify the Earth, and it can be restored. But, if we don’t store them immediately, even more species will be lost, and when the war comes nearly all species will be wiped out. When that happens all of those living things will be gone forever. Even now during peacetime, we are the cause of many species going extinct, but this ongoing tragedy is only the beginning. When our present population consumes the one-time-use resources, then all the world is made poorer, and when our population doubles again all of those deadly processes will accelerate. Our population can not  go on forever without resources and when they become scarce our population will collapse in a most dreadful way.

The general shortfall will be the triggering cause for a massive war, but with that war the infrastructure that permits our present huge population to exist will collapse. And with that collapse the beautiful life we are all living at present will become impossible. Unfortunately, with that war there will come radioactive clouds and darkness which will destroy food production and nearly all larger animals and plants will die. Ten years after the war the Earth will probably be rebounding,  but even if we as individuals survive we might not recognize the landscape, because so many things would be gone. What will probably be around in abundance is what we presently call weeds. But, that will be all there is. Waves of various kinds of weeds.

Into this grim picture there is a possibility of revivification of the life of the Earth if we have stored the seeds of all living things in a permanent storage place. To a small degree this is being done by seed companies to protect their patent property rights, but not much has been done to save the millions of species of non-commercial plants. The EarthArk Project is designed to collect wild seeds from every habitat on Earth and store them in a permanent deep freeze in the coldest place on Earth. It is a simple concept and it can easily be done, because there are no technical difficulties in doing any portion of the project. It only requires a few people from every location going out into their local area and collecting a variety of whatever is there and taking it to a local collection center. The next step would be placing these seeds into shipping containers and then transporting them to safe cold places high in the mountains of high latitude Antarctica. Ships go to the McMurdo Station in Antarctica every year, and from that port the shipping containers need only be trucked up to the mountain sides of Mt Vinson. It is only a question of doing it before society collapses. After that happens it will be much more difficult and possibly impossible.

This is a far more important project than the present ecology movement, because as wonderful as these efforts are they are doomed to fail when the population of humans becomes so great the starving people scour the Earth for every last calorie of edible food. It is impossible for modern people to contemplate a true worldwide famine, because we have grown accepting the idea of ten generations of people always having an abundance of food. The last major hitch in human population was back in 1347 with the plague. There is no way to prevent the population explosion from continuing, and it doesn’t really matter because we already have the people presently existing who will consume the resources and trigger the collapse. That is why The Earth Ark Project is so important to do immediately, while there is still time, plus the resources and freedom to salvage what species still do exist.

To reach this absolutely essential goal of preserving life, all that is required is for a few individuals from every community to collect wild seeds and small soil samples from their local area. It is a moral obligation for every community to support this effort, because without these stored essences all of the things which humanity values will be permanently lost. If you don’t support The EarthArk Project no one will, and humanity is doomed.

Collect seeds of the future now and send them to the EarthArk.

Arcology and the EarthArk

Tags

1000 future years, Humanities 1000 year survival, Permanent survival, Survival of species, Survival of the Earth

Arcology is a general term for self contained cities. They are science fiction staple usually placed in the distant future, but sometimes arcology refers to cities designed by professional architects, when they are not otherwise gainfully employed.

Two projects I have written about are similar to Arcology, The EarthArk Project which isn’t a city but has as its general principle the saving of humanity and all other biologically active entities, but mostly seeds. It is a permanent deep-freeze of all organic things placed at high altitude in Antarctica where the temperature is always below 40° F.

A second proposal is The Life Haven Project which is similar to the arcology principle, but it is intended to be constructed as quickly as possible. To some extent my Life Haven already exists in South Island, New Zealand where the people are most likely to survive Doomsday wars without much further preparation. The basic Life Haven is a location of few thousand persons of maximally divers ethnic background formed into communities on the islands of the southern oceans. They are presently uneconomical locations, and therefore are not presently occupied by people. These Life Havens are intended to form a core of all of the things of the modern world, to provide a basis from which the future world could reconstitute itself after a worldwide disaster. They would be maximally remote from Doomsday wars, and would be designed and stocked to survive for ten years without any outside support. Thus when a Doomsday occurred they could form the basis for repopulating the Earth, both with humans and with a large selection other living things.

The future must be now when it comes to The EarthArk.

Your personal EarthArk in a free water bottle.

Tags

EarthArk strategy

The EarthArk Project is designed to save as much of the world’s accumulated life forms from destruction as possible. That includes wild species of all living things and not just the commercially viable seeds. The ultimate goal is to have samples of seeds and soil from every square kilometer of Earth put into 10,000 year cold storage. No human controlled refrigerator can be expected to perform for such an extended period of time but placing the stored material in a container high in Antarctica would work. The South Pole Station has a sub-surface temperature of -50 degrees and the surface occasionally reaches -100 degrees. At those very cold temperatures all biological activity ceases and so does almost all chemically caused deterioration. Virtually anything properly containerized high in Antarctica would remain functional for as long as humanity has raised crops, that is why I choose 10,000 years as my base time goal. There may be a global warming of five degrees before then which would be very troublesome for humanity but for our EarthArk storage site located high on an Antarctic mountain going from -50 to -45 wouldn’t make any difference to its survivability.

The completed EarthArk storage depot could grow to be quite large with over a thousand shipping containers. These should be placed on hard rock such as Mt. Vinson where there will be no glacial activity to move or destroy them. To accomplish the task of getting the complete EarthArk in place requires many people’s effort from all over the world. The Wikipedia model of many independent people cooperating towards a specific and achievable goal is what will probably prove most workable. The plan is for a few people from the millions of isolated places around the world to simply submit a kilogram size or less of local wild seeds and soil samples to the EarthArk. These could be sent by mail to a not too distant local collection point where they could be taken to a larger EarthArk container for the whole country. Once a container was fully loaded and clearly labeled as to its source location it would be flown to Antarctica and simply set in place amongst the community of other EarthArk containers.

These containers could be arranged to form the building bricks for a large structure which could be formed into habitable interior. Within this protected interior volume a small hotel could be built, which could be used for what ever maintenance, tabulation and security personnel were needed for the containers. After they are in place and documented they would require very little maintenance.

This EarthArk Project is obviously vastly larger than I can do by myself but I can do a tiny almost instant EarthArk which will illustrate how it can be done. I can collect and package a small container with tiny samples of some locally collected things and ship them to as high a place in Antarctica as is possible. Perhaps, I could send it with one of the expeditions which routinely send adventurers to the top of various mountains. All that would be required is having a small enough package which could be placed in the mountain climber’s backpack and he would place it in the memento cache located at the top of most mountains. That would be good because it would be a safe and yet easily identifiable location. It is important that they be easily findable in the future but not easily destroyed by any sort of scavenger. To do these mountain top EarthArks only requires finding those Outdoor Adventure Companies and asking those people going to these remote mountain tops to carry a small package and place it there as their personal memento. If the package wasn’t more than a half kilogram it wouldn’t be too much of a burden to carry and it would give their trip a little more purpose and their life quest more meaning. There could be an additional reward for them by keeping a publicly published list of people who had placed EarthArks in high mountain top places. This is similar to people sharing their computer off time for massively distributed computer projects like SETI but in this case it is in their back pack on a mountain top.

Stainless steel water bottles could be made with the EarthArk mailing information printed on them

500 ml stainless steel canteen bottles like those in common use for portable water containers would be ideal for this purpose. The style with a stainless steel screw-in stopper would be best because they could be expected to remain fixed permanently especially if a retaining wire were wrapped over the top and around the neck. The EarthArk logo and basic information could be printed on the outside and specific information could be etched or scratched onto the side. These cans with the logo and information could be manufactured in quantity and sent to high schools and colleges throughout the world. They could have pre-paid postage as part of their outside design. Thus after they had been used for a while as regular water containers, advertising The EarthArk Project, they could be filled with local seeds and soil samples and simply placed in a local mailbox. From the mailbox they would find their way to an appropriate shipping center where they would be placed in a larger container destined for Antarctica. Alternatively, their contents could be emptied into a more convenient EarthArk container and the canteen sent back out into some area which needs more collection. This reminds me of the way glass beverage bottles were recycled many times before single use aluminum ones became available.

The very first bottled EarthArks could simply be sent to Adventure Sponsors who could give them to their clients before they started their climbs. As the idea became more widespread and accepted and large monetary donors were found it would be possible to mass produce the bottles. Once these were available in quantity they could be shipped to high schools and colleges all over the world where they could be used for a while and eventually filled by local kids with local wild things and dropped into their local mailbox.

This approach seems doable because there are personal rewards for people at every level. Everyone is helping to save their local environment from the problems of eventual global warming and other problems. It is a way to make people more aware of how to make our planet a better place not only for ourselves but for the people of the future.

A bottle of seeds with your name on it could help restore your whole countryside.

The EarthArk seeds need a big airplane for transport.

Tags

EarthArk airplanes, The EarthArk Project

The EarthArk Project is designed to save as much of the world’s DNA from destruction as possible. That includes wild species of all living things and not just the commercially viable seeds. That is usually all that is stored in the few presently existing seed banks. The EarthArk Project is vastly greater in scope than any of these ventures. It is intended to create a bank of everything living thing possible which means going well beyond storing a few samples or carefully identified seeds. There should be a lot of overshoot and redundancy to make sure everything is preserved.

Getting substantial samples weekly from every square kilometer of Earth for several years and shipping them to a permanent deep-freeze site high in the TransAntarctic mountains is the ultimate goal. Once these samples were stored in various places where permanent temperatures remain below -40°C they would remain viable for a very long time. In the not very distant future many, perhaps most, of currently living species will be extinct. However, after humanity has recovered from its current over-exploitation of Earth’s resources and the resultant destruction of much of what we currently value, if the EarthArk is in place future humanity will be to able to reconstitute and restore much of what we now take for granted.

Complex bio-webs which form an ecological habitat are composed of many visible living things but supporting these obvious things there are hundreds and possibly millions of unknowable interactions which sustain it. Without many unknown and perhaps unknowable living things the habitat would become warped and unstable and certainly not as vibrant as it now is. Therefore, it is desirable to collect not only the obvious seed samples but also substantial soil samples from various depths as well as the surface. This is especially true in places which are presently undergoing habitat destruction because the visible things are a tiny part of the total habitat. Getting samples right away is already beyond doing and many things are no-doubt lost forever. This challenge grows to a very large size when fully implemented but even a small start will be meaningful.

We needn’t pine too much over the losses which we can do nothing to correct but rather do what we can to collect and send to the EarthArk what is still available. We should collect from everywhere because even common things can and will vanish quickly when some forseeable man-made disaster strikes. There are many, such as a major war, and it is disturbing to think about them but let’s do what we can to ameliorate the effects of potential disasters in a way which will permit a recovery.

Some of the habitat which could most easily be stored in the EarthArk requires transportation from the Northern Hemisphere to the highlands of Antarctica. If this were done with shipping containers on ocean-going ships it would require months of reliable sub-freezing refrigeration during the long surface voyage. These seeds might be forced to endure a high temperature while crossing the equator which would cause the seeds to germinate and thus ruin them for long-term storage.

A solution for this problem would be to have a large airplane dedicated to transporting seeds from winter airports in the Northern Hemisphere all the way to a base high in Antarctica. A big jet with insulated sides could be flown at high altitude, where it is quite cold, all the way from the north to the south. It could be done with inflight refueling or perhaps it would be easier to schedule a landing for fuel at night along the way. If that didn’t take too long there wouldn’t be a problem heating the seeds. Obviously a large jet airplane is expensive to own and operate but they are readily available. An old C-130 turboprop would serve quite well as they have had plenty of experience with ski landings on snow and could go directly to an EarthArk location. With a load of 45,000 pounds range of up to 2,000 miles it would require five refuelings.

C-130s at the South Pole one of the potential EarthArk sites.

The photo is from Peter Cheimet’s South Pole Journal. Any solid container buried in the ice here would store seeds for 10,000 years but it would sink into the ice and slowly move away. That could be tracked and the containers relocated but a more stable location would probably be on the exposed rock side of Mt. Tyree  (-78.414, -86.00) near Mt. Vinson in the TransAntarctic mountains.

[or Queen Alexandra range lat/lon -83.988, 166.611 at 13,500 feet with a runway nearby. Or lat/lon -86.286, -158.00, at 12,900 feet]

All of the these things needed to create an EarthArk are easily done with the right men, equipment, money and provisions and it desperately needs to be done while we have the opportunity.

Some of the previous posts for – The EarthArk Project

1. The Earthark Project will restore the Earth.
2. Give people of the future what they need to survive.
3. Caffe Mediterraneum is the first EarthArk drop site.
4. The first EarthArk is being prepared for Antarctica.
5. Earthark Project suitcase and poster at the Caffe Mediterraneum
6. Earthark Project – Sample Index Page
7. The EarthArk Project Goals
8. Preparations for a basic EarthArk

Preparations for a basic EarthArk

Tags

EarthArk base station, EarthArk construction, EarthArk stack, South Pole EarthArk seedbank

EarthArk at the Mediterraneum in Berkeley

The basic EarthArk is doable by one person acting alone. All it requires is collecting some typical samples of commercial seeds, wild seeds from one’s local area a few small packets of soil from various places, packing them well and shipping them to the South Pole station. Once the package has reached the colder parts of Antarctica an EarthArk is in place and its exact location can be published to the EarthArk directory.The EarthArk directory would be a wiki style document which can be improved by any person merely by editing it. However there would be some monitoring and verification and a go back function such that nothing once posted to it would ever be lost. Numerous copies could be maintained both electronically and physically chiseled into stone and lead foil at various remote but documented sites around the world. Part of every EarthArk would be a directory of exactly where each of the other ones were located. Perhaps, because there may be people who are bent on destroying the world and preventing it from ever recovering to where it is now it would be desirable to have several hidden EarthArks which are put into locations such they would be invisible and would only weather out of their hiding places after thousands of years. These would only be found in the distant future by accident but once found could restore our planet. 

Some of the basic blogs for the EarthArk

 

1. The Earthark Project will restore the Earth.
2. Give people of the future what they need to survive.
3. Caffe Mediterraneum is the first EarthArk drop site.
4. The first EarthArk is being prepared for Antarctica.
5. Earthark Project suitcase and poster at the Caffe Mediterraneum
6. Earthark Project – Sample Index Page
7. The EarthArk Project Goals

 

ISO standard containers seen on ships, trains and trucks throughout the world  would be ideal for Antarctic EarthArcs. They are extremely sturdy and once in place high in the Antarctic should be capable of enduring the weather for thousands of years unattended. If they were grouped together and buried slightly under loose gravel and snow they would be as durable as the landscape itself. Because of their stackability they could be used to form internal spaces between containers. Several containers set across an empty space between other containers already set parallel would then form a large protected inside space. This inside space could be used for living space when visitors are at the site, for storing equipment out of the weather for long periods when the site was unattended and for use as sorting materials brought in or to be taken out.

The first general purpose ISO container put in place is the most critical one because without a single backup of the basic materials which make up our world we are in grave danger of losing much of our biodiversity. With about 8 ISO containers formed into a hollow box there would be a working EarthArk which could easily be parked against with doors either out for ease of entry or faced inward for more security.

The near future must include an EarthArk.

Tags

EarthArk, Saving the future world, The Future

COSMOS magazine issue #27 page 32-39 has an excellent general-public article on the real long term problems facing the world. It acknowledges the obvious fact that physical things, like population, cannot grow exponentially forever in a finite world and the Earth is a finite world. That is obvious mathematical fact but rarely, it seems, does anyone mention it or actually make any effort to behave reasonably considering that inevitable collision of natural facts with human reality.

The former head of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan said, “That is the unquenchable capability of human beings when confronted with long periods of prosperity to presume that it will continue and they begin to take speculative excesses with the consequences that have dotted the history of the globe basically since the beginning of the 18 and 19th century. Go back to the South Sea Bubble, go back to the Tullip Bubble even before. It’s human nature. Unless somebody can find a way to change human nature we will have more crisis and none of them will look like this because no two crisis have anything in common, except human nature.”.

He was referring to highly motivated financial investment people who are paying close attention to an economy not ordinary people involved with many other things. “I fear too many of them thought they would be able to spot the actual trigger point of the crisis in time to get out.” But, I think, no one is going to be able to time the bursting point of the much bigger issue, the population bomb, even though anyone who looks will see it looming
This author claims to be coping with the future problems by having founded an Australian organization called Centre for Disaster Control for Planet Earth (CDCPE) which has the following five core functions:

To manage information by assessing resource data and their uncertainties, and assessing trends; set the agenda for, and stimulate research and development

To set, validate, monitor and pursue the proper implementation of norms and standards

To catalyse change through technical and policy support that stimulates cooperation and action and helps to build sustainable global capacity

To negotiate and sustain national and global partnerships

To articulate consistent, ethical and evidence-based policy and advocacy positions

The COSMOS author’s plan sounds a like committee outline to me, because it doesn’t say anything solid, practical or workable, just generalizations. The article concludes with, “But we’re in a new reality: the past may no longer hold the key to our future, and the present could be a stealth disaster in the making. It’s imperative we take action, but not delude ourselves with small or half-hearted measures.”  This article was  by Susan W. Kieffer, professor of geology at Urbana-Champaign, was based on an American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. The article seems to understand the problem well enough and gives various proofs of understanding. But in a vague and distant way it reminds me of the first American pioneers out on the plains hearing a distant thunder and not realize that it ment thousands of buffalo were charging towards them. These scientists hear rumbling, I do to, but to me it is not so distant. To me it seems that very soon the problems will be stomping through our front door.

There was a beautiful graph in the article which visually demonstrated the massive growth of the top ten urban centers of the world for 1,000 AD, 1800, 1900 and 2015. The biggest city in the world in the year 1000 was Cordova, Spain .45 Million, in 1800 it was Peking at 1.30 Million, in 1900 it was London at 6.50 Million and in 2015 it will be Tokyo at 28.90 Million. The tenth largest city was even more extreme going from Anhilvada at .30 in 1000, Kyoto .38 in 1800, Philadelphia at 1.40 to Calcutta with 17.30 in 2015. So, the biggest city in now 64 times bigger than it was a thousand years ago and the tenth biggest city is 58 times bigger. The other top ten are about the same at approximately 60 times bigger. And they are all about 12 times bigger than they were only one hundred years ago. That is explosive growth! It occurred within the lifetime of really old people still living in those cities. It can’t continue and yet there is nothing to prevent the continuing population explosion except … — … some sort of mega disaster. Humans have no natural predators to keep their population in check (except perhaps other humans) and people will refuse to limit their child bearing voluntarily so the only thing that will work will be a disaster. As horrible as a really serious disease would be it probably wouldn’t bring the population back to 100 million without going to zero. As bad as a really bad famine would be it probably wouldn’t bring the population back to 100 million at least not quickly but what it would do would trigger a major war. An atomic war will bring the population back to 100 million in a few months. First by killing lots of people outright and secondly by the nuclear winter destroying the Northern Hemispheres crops and then  with a really poor crop world wide a really bad famine would ensue.

So there you have it. Either you reduce population quickly to some number the planet will support, which is socially impossible or you do a lot of feckless complaining about how bad things are going to get and we should do something about it. Or the third possibility, you work on plans for a post event recovery period which will move the world into a social structure which will limit population to some agreed upon number and work out ways of staying within that number. The recovery would be better if based on The EarthArk Project  to regain a partial resemblance of today’s wonderful world.

Mountain top Eartharks for local use

The best and most permanent Eartharks are going to be high on the Antarctic plateau because the average temperature there is well below -40°C. However these sites near Mount Earthark ( -83.5 +83.5 ) 3,633 m, are so very cold and very difficult to get to that few if any people or any other living thing has been there for thousands perhaps millions of years. I haven’t heard of any rock samples being brought back to test so that assumption is speculation. However, there is little doubt that even with global warming these sites will remain very cold for thousands of years.

Closer to home for less permanent cold storage are local mountain tops. These are not nearly so consistently cold but they have an advantage in that people go there occasionally and these people could carry samples, collected by other people from the whole world, to these high cold-storage places. These sites have the advantage of most quickly and easily storing local wild seeds and other things. It is simply the carrying these things to a collection place and others who happen to be climbing these mountains taking what ever size package they feel is appropriate as high up the mountain as possible. Half way up to some staging container is okay because some later person could carry that load a little further up and eventually it would reach the best possible storage place. Some early climbers could carry a pick or shovel or a permanent containers such as garbage cans or barrels as their personal load. These could be used for many years for digging the Eartharks into the mountain to make them more permanent. Over a period of time the tools, containers and stored materials would become part of every mountain top but they would be buried to the point where they would be totally invisible unless you searched for them.

A record of what is taken to the top of each mountain would be kept locally and it would be uploaded on the internet to permanent Earthark wiki data centers, perhaps at Wikipedia. This is helpful because when it is known what is at each Earthark site it is also know what is needed there to make it better. This is an ongoing project rather like a wiki except that the material taken up is accumulative and need never be removed except at some time in the future when they are desperately needed. The following list is from Peak Bagger. Go there for lots more mountains to put Eartharks on. The list will get you started with the highest peaks on the various continents. It is recommended that you Cut and Paste the coordinates into Google Earth and also to click the -W- for the long Wikipedia article.

1. Mount Everest 8850 Asia ( +27.988 +86.926 ) –W–
2. Aconcagua 6962 South America ( -32.653 -70.012 ) –W–
3. Mount McKinley 6194 North America ( +63.070 -151.006 ) –W–
4. Kilimanjaro 5895 Africa ( -3.076 +37.354 ) –W–
5. Elbrus 5642 Europe ( +43.353 +42.437 ) –W–
6. Vinson Massif 4892 Antarctica ( -78.530 -85.62 ) –W–
7. Puncak Jaya 4884 Australia-Oceania ( -4.083 +137.182 ) –W–
8. Mont Blanc 4810 Europe ( +45.834 +6.865 ) –W–
9. Mount Kosciuszko 2228 Australia-Oceania ( -36.456 +148.263 ) –W–

The mountains above are all okay but Australia’s Mount Kosciuszko at only 2228 meters isn’t high enough to maintain a permanent frozen condition. Mount Puncak Jaya on New Guinea island, Indonesia is quite high at 4884 meters but it is so close to the equator that, with global warming, even at this altitude, click to see it will not retain ice for a thousand years.  Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa also isn’t maintaining its ice cap even now so those nearby regions will best be served by a dedicated African-Antarctic isotainer Earthark. So the better option for these localities is to place a dedicated isotainer on Antarctica dedicated to their locality and ship their materials there.

Eventually it is hoped that all regions will have dedicated isotainer like containers filled with local materials in deep freeze storage at the Earthark site in Antarctica ( -83.5 +83.5 ). Once these Eartharks are in place they will preserve much of the modern Earth’s living forms for revivification in the distant future. Although we will be long gone those people in the future will live much fuller lives because of our timely actions.

The goal of The Earthark Project is to maximize the long term health of humanity and the Earth.

Antarctica – possible Earthark storage sites

Go to Earthark HOME

Antarctica Earthark storage sites

Antarctic Stations and Earthark storage sites

1. Mount Earthark ( -83.5 +83.5 ) 3,633 m, very cold, on rock, near flats, YES
2. Mount Noah (-82.9 +60.0 ) 3,747 m, very cold, on rock, near flats, YES
3. Mount Hope ( -85.6 +55.0 ) 3,296, very cold, on rock, near flats, YES
4. Casey Station ( -66.282 +110.526 ) 20 m, sea shore, glaciers, quakes, NO
5. Davis Station ( -68.577 +77.9675  ) 2 m, sea level, peninsula, NO
6. Dumont Station ( -66.663 +140.002 ) 2 m, sea level on islets, NO
7. Halley ( -75.578 -26.542 ) 2 m, floating on ice shelf, NO
8. Las Estrellas ( -62.200 -58.963 ) 2 m, sea shore, NO
9. Macquarie ( -54.500 158.936 ) 2 m, possible Lifehaven, NO
10. Mawson ( -67.603 +62.874 ) 2 m, sea level, glaciers, NO
11. McMurdo ( -77.846 +166.666 ) 100 m, transit depot, TEMPORARY
12. Palmer ( -64.7742 -64.0538 ) 2 m, perched at sea level, NO
13. Neumayer ( -70.6375 -8.261 ) 41 m, on ice shelf, NO
14. Riquelme ( -63.321 -57.900 ) 4 m, sea shore, NO
15. Rothera ( -67.569 -68.125 ) 4 m, sea shore, NO
16. Sanae ( -71.6725 -2.840 ) 804 m perched on rock ridge, FAIR
17. Scott Base ( -77.849 +166.765 ) 6 m, sea shore, NO
18. South Pole ( -89.999 -89.999 ) 2,835 m, very cold, on ice flow, FAIR
19. Troll ( -72.012 +2.5325 ) 1337 m, perched on rock cliff, FAIR
20. Vostok ( -78.464 +106.835 ) 3,494 m, on ice flow, FAIR

Potential Earthark sites in central Antarctica

Tags

Central Antarctica mountains, EarthArk, Earthark Hope, Earthark Noah, Earthark sites

Earthark sites must be very cold to maintain the viability of seeds and retard the aging of other materials. There are two basic places for this to occur: the tops of high mountains and central Antarctica which has both naturally low polar temperatures and high altitude mountains.  The site locations which appear to be the very best available on Earth for permanent cold storage are here in central Antarctica. My favorite sites are at ( -83.5 +83.5 ) ( -82.9 +60.0 ) and ( -85.6 +55.0 ). Because I haven’t been able to find names for these sites it is assumed that whatever names might have been attached to them are not in general circulation and are feeble. Because, so far as I know, there has never been a usage proposed for these mountain sites and the Earthark usage is a very meaningful and strong one, and hopefully soon to be a very large one, it is fitting that they should be named with that purpose in mind.

Earthark, Noah and Hope sites

Earthark sites (image from iguide.travel)

The first sight is appropriately called Earthark Mountain because it is where an Earthark will be placed and because this mountain is a large and smooth arc on the face of the Earth. The second site looks rather like an ancient boat from space with a person standing in it so it is called Noah’s Mountain and its Earthark container would be called Noah’s Ark. That is relevant and reasonable because the whole Earthark Project is rather like the ancient story of Noah and his famous ark upon which he loaded two of everything for the world’s salvation. The third site ( just off the map below) is Earthark Hope Mountain because on this and the other sites rests the hope of future humanity restoring Earth to something more closely resembling the Earthly paradise we are presently enjoying.

Animals gather to enter Noah’s Ark by Jan Brueghel

There is the SCAR Antarctic information site which gives some interactive maps but I didn’t find any data for these mountains which is strange because they are so prominent. Dome A ( -80.36 +77.35 ) sometimes called Argus Dome is all but invisible it is so flat but because of its being the highest point of the ice dome at 4,091 metres (13,422 ft) above sea level it gets a name. That is spectacular but my mountains needed a name too and they didn’t get one. Here is a list of Antarctic Mountain Ranges. and here is a list of Antarctica’s mountain peaks but there is nothing. Here at Peakbagger is a great list but the ones in Antarctica are all coastal mountain ranges. It will be a good idea to contact these mountain climbers because they will be able to take Earthark packages up to those higher elevations from all over the world and where they could serve as local seed banks. Local high mountains should preferably have local material to avoid cross contamination but all of these containers should be made as sturdy as possible as if they are to last a thousand years.

If we don’t save our planet’s species soon they will soon be gone forever.

Antarctica’s Gamburtsev mountains and the Earthark.

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Antarctic Mountains, Antarctic subglacial mountains, EarthArk, Earthark sites, Gamburtsev, Permanent cold storage

Great news for the Earthark project! It was reported today that a team has been to Antarctica mapping the very region which is perfect for the placement of the isotainers. This appears to be the mountains which I have been talking about in my blogs for months and have been unable to find their name. But now they and the local area has been carefully mapped with ice penetrating radar and other scientific instruments. The above image was taken from the MountEverest.net site Feb 25, 2009. It is labeled “Gamburtsev sub-glacial mountains: AGAP mission accomplished.” Gamburtsev Mountain Range ( -80.5 +76.0 ) is as much as 2.5 kilometers deep beneath the ice and is made visible with radar. The mountain range for the Earthark project is 300 kilometers closer to the south pole than the center of their map but it appears that the exposed mountains which are most valuable for the Earthark Project are within the region they mapped.

Google Earth image of Antarctica showing the area scanned.

By projecting the red square of the picture above onto Google Earth map of Antarctica it appears that its corners are at ( -83 +10) ( -75 +30 ) (-75 + 70 ) ( -83 + 90 ). These coordinates give close to 1000 kilometers to each side of the rectangle. The picture of the mountains, in their picture above, shows 250 km by 700 km but that size doesn’t compare well to the red square and it appears to be only be a portion of the area scanned. The white dot at the center of the picture is at about ( -80 +50 ) which is about 630 km from the Earthark mountains shown at the black dot. A line from ( -83 +90 ) to ( -83 +10 ), the bottom red line, traverses directly over the center of the Earthark mountain arc and hopefully there is excellent mapping of some of that exact region. For an easy number to remember go for ( -83.5 +83.5 ) because it puts one near the center of the Earthark mountains. Seen in the closeup below are the mountains protruding from the ice. Also to be considered near perfect are the mountains at ( -83 +60 ) and ( -85.5 +55 ). They are all good sites for deep cold storage of Earth essentials.

The Antarctica area where the Earthark Mountains are located.

The problem with deep freeze in the Antarctic shouldn’t be the winter temperatures because they will be well below -50°C most of the time. The potential problem is with summer temperatures when the sun shines directly upon these exposed Earthark isotainers. Then the temperature may rise above -20°C for the surface of an isotainer placed on the surface but a modest amount of burial or insulation would maintain a more constant lower temperature inside. If they were placed in shaded locations they wouldn’t heat up but the sun circles all 360° around the horizon so it would be best if the isotainers were located in a natural hollow. It appears that such a site is at ( -82.37 +81.90 ) although over the hill at ( -83.48 +82.00 ) would have a lower sun angle during the summer. This average temperature is easy to check, if you were there, by taking sub surface temperature readings a meter below the surface which would give an accurate year round average temperature. There are quite a few similar sites with similar analysis possible but all of them in this area would work quite well for 1,000 year cold storage potential.

I am looking forward to seeing the new maps and hopefully some closeup photographs of these mountains.