2.5 km deep lab being built in South Dakota

2.5 km deep lab being built in South Dakota

news.yahoo.com

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Far below the Black Hills of South Dakota, crews are building the world's deepest underground science lab at a depth equivalent to more than six Empire State buildings — a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.

Scientists, politicians and other officials gathered Monday for a groundbreaking of sorts at a lab 4,850 foot below the surface of an old gold mine that was once the site of Nobel Prize-winning physics research.

The site is ideal for experiments because its location is largely shielded from cosmic rays th

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The deepest reaches of the mine plunge to 8,000 feet below the surface. Some early geology and hydrology experiments are already under way at 4,850 feet. Researchers also hope to build two deeper labs that are still awaiting funding from Congress.

"The fact that we're going to be in the Davis Cavern just tickles us pink," said Tom Shutt of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, referring to a portion of the mine named after scientist Ray Davis Jr., who used it in the 1960s to demonstrate the existence of particles called solar neutrinos.

news.yahoo.com
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Wow, this stuff just keeps on getting more interesting each pass day. New military technology, possible disclosure, rockets being shot at the moon, the Vatican visiting Cern, multiple front wars on the horizon, nuclear exchanges, revolutions, and the list continues . . . This stuff is better than any fiction but it's real. I wonder why the research facility has to so far below the surface? Are they afraid of materials from the experiment reaching the surface? What the hell is all this interest in dark matter and the higgs boson particle? These are some very strange times we are living in.

Somehow I think there are far better uses for money right now than essentially throwing it down a hole in hopes a scientist will stumble upon something that possibly-maybe-could-be useful in like ten generations. We have far more pressing matters that need to be dealt with right now, shame we don't seem too concerned about them.

reply to post by Jakes51


No, from what I remember about the dark matter experiments, is that they do it super deep in the ground because then the ONLY cosmic matter that can pass through that much of earth is Dark Matter, keeping the experiment "clean" and uncluttered from other cosmic matter which can penetrate through quite a bit of solid matter.

Hmmm that sounds confusing...let me see if I can find something that explains it better.

reply to post by XKrossX


No, that makes perfect sense.