Time capsule buried to preserve science for the ages

On Arctic island, researchers have buried a stainless-steel tube stuffed with artefacts that they say sum up science and technology in 2017. The capsule, buried on 17 September, could remain in the ground for more than half a million years before it resurfaces as a result of geological uplift, sea-level rise and erosion.

Placed five metres deep in an out-of-use borehole near the Polish Polar Station in Hornsund, Svalbard, the 60-centimetre-long tube holds smaller containers with samples that include a fragment of a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite, basaltic lava from an Icelandic volcano eruption and Namibian sand hiding particles of kimberlite and diamonds — all geared at informing a future discoverer of our present understanding of Earth’s geology. 

To summarize biology, it includes dried DNA samples from humans, rats, salmon and potato, a bee in resin, seeds and around 300 tardigrades, the minuscule aquatic ‘water bears’ that can survive extreme radiation,drought and heat.

And to communicate to future historians the state of today’s technology, scientists packed into the tube silicon-based electronic devices, including accelerometers, a radiation detector and a mobile phone. They added a credit card, a wristwatch and a photograph, etched into porcelain for longevity, of Earth taken from space. Researchers also left their fingerprints on the inside of some of the container caps.