As we watch the devastation wrought by the earthquake in Japan, and mourn the loss of life, we should also reflect on the possible danger to genebanks. The US Geological Survey have a real-time earthquake Google Earth plug-in, and you can download a lot of genebank locations from WIEWS. Mash the two together and zoom in on Japan and you get this.
Fortunately, we’re not getting any indications of damage to Japanese genebanks (the red squares), so far. Something similar could probably be done with threat from tsunamis.
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