About 50 miles from my home, the Prairie Island nuclear power generator
now stores spent nuclear fuel rods in dry casks, above ground. The
island is adjacent to the Mississippi River. The half-life of the rods'
radioactivity is about 10,000 years. How should those casks be labeled,
and what kind of inventory records should be kept to advise people in
10,000 CE what dangers lie within? Labeling should consider that flood,
earthquake, glaciers, etc. might separate these casks from their
inventory records.
One answer is the Norsam disk, or "pancake drive", as it was called
several years ago. That ion beam Jesse describes can write either
digital or analog data -- or both. The idea is that even if all
playback hardware and operating systems for digital etching were lost,
the disks would still be readable, if only by archaeological linguists
with electron microscopes.
Does anyone have a better way for really long-term storage of really
vital records?
Gordy Hoke
Grevin, Fred wrote:
> In addition to Jesse's comments (with which I heartily agree), everyone "assumes" that the world will continue on a curve of increasing progress, and one that is technology-focussed.
>
> Both are assumptions, and both assumptions do not match with the history of the last 5,000 years.
>
> I have a "mind picture" of the Norsam disks (a) making fine ornaments on the body of a tribal chief, or (b) being thoroughly destroyed as symbols of an evil civilisation.
>
> Science-fiction, you say? Remember Arthur C. Clarke's comment: "any sufficiently-advanced technology appears to be magic." BTW, Clarke originated the concept of satellite navigation and broadcasting.
>
> ------Original Message------
> From: Jesse Wilkins
> To: [log in to unmask]
> ReplyTo: Records Management Program
> Sent: Apr 12, 2009 09:47
> Subject: Re: [RM] Question re Document managemenetsystems for archives
>
> I've mentioned the Rosetta system in several of my digital preservation
> presentations. It was developed by Los Alamos National Laboratories and
> commercialized(?) by Norsam Technologies. It uses an ion beam to etch data
> into the surface of very hard metals such as nickel or titanium. Depending
> on how dense the data is written, it can be read using an optical or
> electron microscope and claims a lifespan of 2000+ years.
> It is being used today in the aforementioned Rosetta project to catalog the
> world's languages, particularly those in danger of being lost. But it's
> quite expensive and not *really* commercialized in the sense that you will
> see it at Best Buy in the foreseeable future. In addition, it's only really
> useful for analog - in other words, it's basically super high density
> microfilm. The reason, as I've also noted in my presentations, is that media
> lifespan is the least of the three major digital preservation issues. The
> more pressing issues are hardware obsolescence and software
> incompatibility/obsolescence - how would you read what's on that nickel disk
> in 2,000 years if it's Word 2007? Word 5? WordStar? Etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jesse Wilkins
> [log in to unmask]
> blog: http://informata.blogspot.com
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessewilkins
>
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