Underneath This Mine In South Dakota Lies A Creepy Yet Amazing Laboratory

Well below the surface near Lead, South Dakota is a laboratory that has been making history for years. Before there was any sort of lab, it was an open cut gold mine known as the Homestake Mine.

In the 1960s, astrophysicist Raymond Davis Jr used the site to work on what was known as both the Homestake Experiment and the Davis Experiment. He is shown below during that experiment.

The experiment was meant to study the neutrinos (a type of particle that only interacts with weak force and gravity) emitted by nuclear fusion happening on the sun. It was groundbreaking at the time and Davis received a Nobel prize for his efforts. Now, new groundbreaking experiments are happening even further underground.

Now the site is used for the Sanford Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory. It was originally supposed to be part of a plan called DUSEL - Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory - for the US Department of Energy to conduct further studies about neutrinos. DUSEL was not fully completed.

You can see in this diagram just how deep the labs are. To compare, there are over 6 Empire State Buildings shown on the side to show the depth of what would have been the DUSEL labs. Many different types of science studies are ongoing at the completed parts of the lab, but there are some that definitely catch people's attention a bit more.

Dark matter studies are conducted at this lab. Cosmic rays on the surface usually cause issues and disrupt this type of study but the rays cannot reach so deep underground, making this the perfect place to study them.

These physics experiments pave the way for future knowledge about dark matter, which is mostly still a mystery to us.

Though the depth of the lab can be rather daunting and the studies in which it conducts might seem somewhat mysterious to some, it is a very fascinating part of South Dakota that will be a huge part of scientific history, right in our state.

There are other intriguing areas underground in South Dakota, including these caves that you can visit yourself.