The Granite Mountain Records Vault in Salt Lake City holds the world's largest collection of genealogical records and records of importance to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. However, many of the privately owned vaults and depositories are just as impressive, although they hold some unexpected treasures. Generally, bank vaults are used to hold what we'd typically imagine as valuable goods: Cash, gold, jewels and the like. They're Used to Hold Some Unusual and Unexpected Things You can read about what's now known about the heist in this Wired piece about one of the men who was finally convicted of the crime. To this day, no one's entirely sure how they pulled it off. The thieves took so much loot - $100 million worth - they couldn't even carry it all away. In 2003, what was believed to be the most impenetrable diamond safe in the world, the Antwerp Diamond Vault in Belgium, was quietly opened during the night. Of course, that isn't to say that there aren't a few clever criminals who make carefully planned attempts against a bank vault's security features. Most bank robbers don't even bother with the bank's vault according to the FBI, the vast majority of crimes happen at the counter. The 37-kiloton nuke merely loosened the vault's trim.

also blasted a bank vault during nuclear testing in Nevada. In fact, it was two Mosler bank vaults at the Teikoku Bank - and only those two bank vaults - that were left standing after Hiroshima was hit by an atomic bomb in 1945. As a result, some of them will survive almost anything. They Are Built to Withstand *Almost* AnythingДЄlthough the latest bank vaults are built to be disassembled more easily (while still being ultra-secure), historically, bank vaults were built to last. Of course, for those who work at the bank, not being able to open the vault when you want or need to can occasionally prove to be most inconvenient. Time locks and time delay locks are still used in bank vaults as theft deterrents. So, a man named James Sargent came up with a combination lock that wouldn't open until a set number of hours had passed. And, of course, the simplest way to get into any lock is simply to hold the bank manager hostage until he agrees to open it. But it wasn't long before burglars learned to drill holes in the lock's case and peer inside at the gears to open the lock. When bank robbers learned to blast through safes with key locks, inventor Linus Yale Jr. But They've Stuck With a Clever and Innovative Type of Lock When you're guarding trillions of dollars, you can't be too careful. The very most secure vaults even include things like 22-ton vault doors, machine-gun wielding guards, three foot keys, and robots. Today's most secure bank vaults include more technology than ever, including things like heat sensors, motion detectors, and alarms. That sort of technology arms race is ever-present in bank security.Д®nterprising burglars have cleverly used gunpowder, nitroglycerin, and acetylene torches to pry open the tiny vulnerabilities each new bank vault provided.

Of course, for every genius who can invent a lock, there's another one who can learn to pick it. There's a Technological Arms Race With Burglars As a result, safes got ever larger and heavier until, by the 1920s, most banks were using huge, built-in vaults, with walls and doors that were several feet thick. Banks quickly decided they needed a secure solution that couldn't be carried off by a determined thief. At that time, banks used safes to protect their goods, and bank robbers took to heaving these out the window, hauling them off, and breaking them open in a secure location. They Were Invented as a Result of the Gold RushДЄt least in the U.S., bank vaults as we know them today emerged during the Gold Rush of 1849, when unsuccessful prospectors gave up on finding their gold in the ground and decided to get it the easy way - by robbing a bank. Here are 10 things you probably didn't know about them. (See also: The Best and Worst Places to Stash Cash in Your Home) In fact, these ultra-exclusive enclaves of riches have a lot of secrets.

That's because bank vaults and other covert bunkers that hold valuable goods use some pretty amazing technology to keep things secure. For most of us, our exposure to bank vaults probably doesn't extend beyond the clever bank heists we've seen in movies like ' Ocean's 11' and ' Heat.' In reality, of course, those types of crimes are very, very rare.

Most secure vault in the world