Dr. Ray Davis inspects his neutrino detector under construction in the Homestake gold mine. (1965)
A laboratory 4,850 feet underground in the Homestake gold mine in Lead, South Dakota, helped start a revolution in physics.
Dr. Ray Davis installed a neutrino detector in Homestake in 1965. Neutrinos are subatomic particles produced by fusion in stars, and over the course of three decades, the Davis experiment led to the discovery that the neutrinos produced in our sun change type, or "flavor," on their way to earth. The change in flavor meant neutrinos had to have at least a wisp of mass -- a wisp that required a significant change in the Standard Model of how the universe works.
South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds joins scientists who are already working at the Sanford Underground Laboratory. Click here to watch on YouTube
The DUSEL Plan
An NSF DUSEL at Homestake The National Science Foundation’s DUSEL at Homestake, would have campuses from the surface down to 8,000 feet. Click Here...
Davis excavation
By late last week, a Sanford Underground Lab crew had removed 13,000 tons of rock to enlarge the Davis Cavern and create the new Transition Cavern in a campus 4,850 feet underground. The crew of 11, which includes nine former Homestake miners, has been working two 10-hour shifts a day to complete the project.
The rock is being disposed of nearly 2 miles away, in old stopes and drifts 150 feet deeper on the 5,000-foot level. Once the muck is removed from the Davis Cavern, rock bolts will be installed in the lower ribs (walls) of the cavern. Excavation and mucking continues in the Transition Cavern, but that work should be complete by early to mid-September, according to Construction Manager Will McElroy. The two caverns also will get coats of shotcrete. The cost of excavating and shotcreting the Davis and Transition caverns will be about $2.8 million.
Homestake Mining Co. extracted nearly 7 million feet of solid-rock core samples during decades of exploration for gold. Crews used diamond-bit drills to extract the slender, cylindrical rock cores, most of which are long discarded. However, Homestake did donate 396,000 feet of surviving core – 75 miles' worth – to the Sanford Underground Laboratory.
The core archive is a unique scientific resource and a priceless window into 9 cubic miles of underground real estate. "This was a world renown mine," former Homestake Chief Geologist Kathy Hart says. "Every geology student studies it."
July 10 event draws 600-plus
Lead, S.D. -- Neutrino Day drew about 550 people to the Yates Dry and the Yates Shaft hoist room on a Saturday morning.
Add 65 people for the standing-room-only crowd at Friday’s night’s Science Cafe at the Stampmill and about 30 for an art-and-science lec…
Monday, July 5; 9 p.m. CDT (8 p.m. MDT) Sanford Lab also on S.D. Public Radio's "Innovation"
LEAD, S.D. -- Gov. Mike Rounds will take television viewers a mile underground to visit with scientists and technicians re-opening the former Homestake gold mine in Lead as a national laboratory.
The Governor is the host of -- "Deep Science: the vision for underground research at Homestake" --Â a 30-minute video that will air on South Dakota Public Television on Monday, July 5, at 9 p.m. CDT (8 p.m. MDT). Viewers will join the Governor for a look at the kinds of research that physicists, geologists and biologists hope to do at South Dakota's first national laboratory.
LEAD, S.D. -- Pumping water has begun from the deepest levels of the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake.
Earlier this month, at a control panel 5,000 feet underground, Sanford Lab Facilities Technician Norm Mason pushed a button that started the new deep-water system. Water is being pumped in stages from 7,800 feet underground to the lab's water treatment plant on the surface.
"It's kind of exciting," Underground Operations Foreman Jack Stratton said. "We're already seeing a change." The first week of deep-water pumping dropped the water level 42 feet, to 5,090 feet underground.
The water level at the Sanford Lab had been kept static since late March -- between 5,048 and 5,126 feet underground -- while Sanford Lab technicians and Denver, Colo., contractor Hydro Resources installed the bigger, deeper pumping system.
Lead, S.D. -- Dark matter afficianados won't want to miss the Sanford Underground Laboratory's Fourth of July Parade float. It's a salute to the Large Underground Xenon Detector, which will search for dark matter at the 4,850-foot level of the Sanford Lab.
To ensure the technical accuracy of this r…
Lead, S.D. A high-definition videoconference over the ultra-high speed Interet2Â network connected 600 people in a ballroom in Virginia to the 4,850-foot level deep in the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake.Click here to see a webcast of the event, which was on April 28, 2010.
An NSF DUSEL at Homestake The National Science Foundation’s DUSEL at Homestake, would have campuses from the surface down to 8,000 feet. Click Here...
By late last week, a Sanford Underground Lab crew had removed 13,000 tons of rock to enlarge the Davis Cavern and create the new Transition Cavern in a campus 4,850 feet underground. The crew of 11, which includes nine former Homestake miners, has been working two 10-hour shifts a day to complete the project.
