Sanford Underground Research Facility

Ross steel below the 300 Level

Replacing the steel in the Ross Shaft requires sophisticated equipment. Custom-made work decks have replaced the Ross cage and north skip. (The "cage" is a conveyance for people and equipment. A "skip' is a conveyance to remove rock from underground.) A smaller Sky Climber lift runs up and down the shaft in a parallel compartment, between the cage and skip compartments. Two blue Gorbel cranes are available to remove old steel and maneuver new steel into place.

But the work isn’t always complicated. Last week...

New Ross steel near 300 Level

Crews replacing steel in the Ross Shaft have refurbished 426 feet of the shaft, which puts them 36 feet above the 300 Level. “I’m proud of the guys,” Ross Shaft Foreman George Vandine says. “They’ve done a nice job.” Four crews of four, plus two toplanders, are working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week on the project.

Steel replacement began in August and early work included start-up tasks. For example crews had to install new work decks in the cage and north skip compartments, two small cranes and a...

LUX filled with liquid xenon

On Sunday researchers working on the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment finished filling the dark matter detector with liquid xenon.

The process had begun Thursday. Yale University physicist Dan McKinsey, a spokesman for LUX, was underground that morning, but he pointed out that most of the work was being done by young postdocs and even younger graduate students.

First, they meticulously worked their way through a detailed checklist, verifying that dozens of valves in the experiment’s xenon...

Xenon delivered, ‘charcoal mellowed, drop by drop’

The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter detector obviously could not operate without its main ingredient—xenon—and last Wednesday 400 kilograms were delivered. “As of 10:05 a.m. today, the full inventory of LUX xenon was in the clean space in the Davis Campus,” Science Director Jaret Heise reported in an email. “Congrats to everyone involved!” Laboratory Director Mike Headley responded, “Thanks for getting this done safely!”

Heise credits the safe delivery to Science Integration Engineer Wendy Zawada...

ERT practices in smoke and darkness

Ever tried to hook up a telephone in a dark and smoky room while wearing bulky gloves and a Dräger BG4 closed-circuit breathing apparatus? Members of the Emergency Response Team (ERT) did just that during two drills last week.

To test the team’s “fine motor skills,” ERT Coordinator Woody Hover used a Rosco 1500 fog machine filled with Froggy’s Fog fire-rescue smoke—adding an emergency ambience to two locations. The trainings were at the Homestake sawmill building last Wednesday and on Saturday in the...

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Current and future underground experiments

The graphic above illustrates current and proposed experiments at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Here’s a rundown of three operating laboratories and four proposed sites, beginning on the left side of the graphic with the two experiments in the Davis Campus at the 4850 Level:

The Large Underground Xenon experiment has been installed in its protective water tank, which could be filled as early as this month.
Majorana Demonstrator researchers are machining the ultra-pure copper they’ll use to build their neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment.
The “multi-functional lab module” is a proposal, as is FAARM, which stands for the Facility for Acquisition and Assay of Radiopure Materials.
The Temporary Clean Room, opened last year, is where the Majorana collaboration has been electroforming their ultra-pure copper.
The low-background counting facility near the Ross Shaft is a proposal.
The proposed Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) is shown in two locations. One option is a surface laboratory in Kirk Gulch; the other option is a lab on the 4850 Level.
DIANA, the Dual Ion Accelerator for Nuclear Astrophysics, is an experiment proposed for the 3950 Level.

Davis Campus ready for science

The floors are steel grids or ultra-smooth surfaces of burnt-orange epoxy-resin over concrete. The ceilings are acoustic tile or overhead conduits packaged in shiny foil. The walls are ho-hum cinder block—except when they suddenly bulge into Gaudiesque undulating freeforms, the shotcreted natural rock face intruding into the architectural tedium. It's the Davis Campus on the 4,850-foot level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in what was formerly the Homestake gold mine in Lead, S.D. The mine has been repurposed for science, and the Davis Campus was officially opened during a dedication ceremony on May 30, 2012. (Click the title to read more.)