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.
LEAD — From officially dedicating the Sanford Lab at the 4,850-foot
level, to celebrating additional awards from the National Science
Foundation for the DUSEL design, 2009 was a year of milestones and
celebrations for both the project to build a state-run laboratory at
the former Homestake gold mine and the proposal to build a deep
underground science and engineering laboratory.
Throughout the year Sanford Lab Executive Director Ron Wheeler said
the lab dropped the water level in the mine by about 400 feet.
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.
