InNOVAtion (aka Science Rocks) draws nearly 600

Public outreach will be a big part of the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake, and it has already started. An event here July 12 drew almost 600 visitors, thanks to thorough and expert promotion by South Dakota Public Broadcasting, which was a co-sponsor of InNOVAtion. In fact, SDPB dreamed up the Saturday morning event. The popular science series NOVA also helped. (Hence, InNOVAtion.)

The event included two presentations by NOVA producer Julia Cort, who talked about raising obelisks in Egypt and hunting “dark matter” in Minnesota. Sanford Lab director Dr. Jose Alonso went into more detail about dark matter and neutrinos. Dr. Cynthia Anderson of Black Hills State University talked about looking for strange life forms deep underground at Homestake. Duane Ennis, a former Homestake gold miner who is helping re-open the mine for science, talked about Homestake’s unique underground culture.

Visitors to InNOVAtion also saw videos and displays. They got to participate in hands-on experiments, both in the dry and in the state’s Science on the Move semi-trailer. More than 450 visitors went on walking tours of the Yates Hoist Room. For a first-person account from an actual visitor, see the Black Hills Pioneer. Click the “more” button for more photos. 

Why they call it a “dry.” 

The Yates Dry was a locker room for the Homestake miners who descended to work down the Yates shaft. (The Ross shaft had its own dry.) It was called a dry because after a shift deep underground, where rock temperatures can reach 135 degrees, miners’ clothes were soaking wet. The dry was kept hot, so clothes would dry overnight. (In the Yates there were even hangers on pulleys, so wet mine clothes could be pulled up to the hottest part of the big locker rooms.)