Sanford Underground Research Facility Archives

Sending a full-scale DUNE detector component a mile underground

The international LBNF/DUNE team with its partners recently tested the logistics of shipping and handling the large detector components that will make up the far-site detector of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. On Wednesday, Nov. 2, personnel at the Sanford Underground Research Facility successfully lowered a 25-foot-long detector component for DUNE a mile underground. This was a full-scale prototype assembled and tested in Europe, then shipped from CERN to South Dakota. DUNE will ship about 150 of these components to South Dakota to build the first neutrino detector module of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

Sanford Lab dedicates M. Michael Rounds Operations Center

From the Black Hills Pioneer, Aug. 21, 2021: The former Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, SD was dedicated as the M. Michael Rounds Operations Center at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The dedication event included remarks from many dignitaries including Sanford Lab Executive Director Mike Headley, who talked about the long journey it has been to support the new facility and that Sanford Lab has made great strides toward building the LBNF that will house the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at 4,850 level, led by Fermilab.

The other particle detector

An illustration. I person stands inside a giant, hollow gold cube and sends a signal using a device to another device on the left side of the screen that is close up and held in a hand. The close-up device says "counting" and has some numbers. In the bottom right-hand corner, it says LBNF/DUNE.

When studying mysterious subatomic particles, researchers at SURF in South Dakota use a different kind of particle detector, particle counters, to prevent run-of-the-mill dust particles from creating background noise and obscuring results.

Construction crews start lowering equipment a mile underground for excavation for DUNE

An orange and silver drill rig (a tractor-like apparatus with two parallel arms that reach above the cab and then make a steep diagonal to the ground) and several red and silver drill rigs sit in the foreground of a silty construction site. Other equipment is in the midground and hills filled with evergreens and blue sky above in the background.

How do you build a ship in a bottle? Everything necessary to construct the enormous Fermilab-hosted international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment must fit down a narrow, mile-deep shaft cut through solid rock. Contractors have started the months-long process of disassembling excavation equipment and lowering it underground.

Rock transportation system is ready for excavation of DUNE caverns

The conveyor belt taking the rocks from the crusher to the Open Cut passes close to the town of Lead, South Dakota. Image: Fermilab

Fermilab contractors have successfully commissioned a system that will move 800,000 tons of rock to create space for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment’s detectors in South Dakota. Excavation crews will transport the rock from a mile underground to the surface using refurbished mining infrastructure and the newly constructed conveyor system.

Where science meets the sacred

Sanford Underground Research Facility is making an effort to build bridges with Native American communities and operate with respect for the sacred land it is built on.

Move it, skip it, dump it

Take a virtual tour of the newly-upgraded Ross hoistroom and rock conveyance system at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Both the hoistroom and the conveyance system are critical to constructing LBNF and DUNE a mile below the surface.

From the atmosphere to the underground

Read the travelogue of a xenon atom as it journeys from the air we breathe to a dark-matter detector a mile underground.

Crews complete major upgrade to Ross Hoists

Contractors completed major mechanical and electrical upgrades to the Ross Hoists at Sanford Underground Research Facility. Newly installed equipment can be identified by its dark blue color, the signature color of Siemag Tecberg, the company contracted by Fermilab for the design, supply and commissioning of the Ross Hoistroom upgrade. Photo: Matthew Kapust, Sanford Underground Research Facility

The Ross Hoists, built in the 1930s, receive major upgrades in preparation for LBNF/DUNE construction and operation.

South Dakota’s DUNE Project — Kiewit-Alberici Preps Former Goldmine for Science Experiment

From Construction and Engineering, March 16, 2021: A construction and engineering short view on the development of DUNE and the impressive engineering and excavation process involving hundreds of thousands of tons of rock almost a mile below the surface.