FROM THE JUNE 2018 ISSUE
Something Stirs: What Will Happen as Permafrost Thaws?
New and ancient threats emerge as permafrost thaws. Are we ready?
By Bridget Alex|Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Homes are sinking and trees are tipping over in Alaska. Mammoth bones are surfacing in the Russian Far East — so many that people have begun selling the tusks as a substitute for elephant ivory. And in 2016, more than 70 people in western Siberia were hospitalized for exposure to anthrax, likely spread from a decades-old reindeer carcass that thawed from frozen ground.
In 2016, meltwater seeped into the entrance tunnel of the Global Seed Vault, a subterranean facility in Arctic Norway nicknamed the Doomsday Vault. There, millions of collected seeds are supposed to stay frozen indefinitely, with little upkeep, a safeguard to restart agriculture should the world’s crops be lost in a large-scale disaster. No seeds were harmed — the water refroze long before reaching the vault — but the breach made the world wonder: Will the Doomsday Vault last until doomsday?
http://discovermagazine.com/2018/jun/something-stirs
