A durable data carrier is crucial. We use high-tech ceramic to store text and images permanently. In addition, the legibility needs to be guaranteed. The information in MOM is directly observable because it is analogue: Texts, illustrations, and photographs.

We use two different methods:

1 A print with special ceramic colour-stains (in a 300 dpi resolution) for photographs and illustrations, similar to a conventional colour-laser-printer. The capacity is subject to the specified resolution.

2 The specially-developed Ceramic Microfilm (in b/w contrast) for texts and mono-coloured graphics. Here text is downsized (five lines per mm), but easily readable with a 10x magnifier. A tablet of Ceramic Microfilm (20×20 cm) can carry up to 5 million characters, this equals 5×400-pages books.

A book on Ceramic Microfilm requires 1/200 of the volume compared to the printed version.

Deciphering in the future:

Since languages alter over time, a deciphering tool will explain our languages, in order to enable future linguists to reconstruct our present languages and how we use them today: A very comprehensive Pictionary (thousands of images of concrete things and situations, directly labeled with the respective words) combined with the theoretical volumes such as grammar, phrases, thesaurus, dictionary, etc.

Protection against unauthorized access:

An archive which claims to persist for 1 million years must be protected from natural and non-natural influences. The MOM archive is located 2 km deep inside the salt-deposit beneath the mountain Plassen in Hallstatt, Austria.

The geology of the mountain will allow the MOM archive to fully close itself by a natural phenomenon: the salt “flows” with a speed of 2 cm/year into any void. This will protect the archive from the greatest threat; man himself.

The pressure which results from the weight of the mountain and a hypothetical ice shield of 5 km thickness is approximately a fifth of the burst pressure of the used materials.

In one of the next steps, you will learn how the MOM archive will be recovered.