Digging Homestake

On 10 July, NSF announced the selection of the former Homestake gold mine in Lead, South Dakota, as the official site for a national multipurpose underground laboratory.

Neutrino, dark-matter, dark-energy, and other experiments that require ultralow background levels of cosmic radiation, as well as investigations of Earth’s crust, the movement of groundwater, and organisms that thrive under extreme heat and pressure, are among the topics anticipated for study at Homestake (see, for example, Physics Today, February 2004, page 32 ). The lab design calls for experimental facilities at various depths down to 2440 meters.

NSF will provide a maximum of $5 million a year for up to three years for developing a detailed technical design. The estimated $500 million tab for the full lab has not yet been approved. A $70 million gift by local bank owner T. Denny Sanford will go toward setting up early experimental infrastructure and educational efforts. In honor of that gift, the lab has been dubbed the Sanford Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory.