South Dakota & Dark Matter

I had fun with the members from South Dakota Yesterday. Turns out South Dakota is the center for one of the most important scientific experiments. They are looking for "Dark Matter", what's it have to do with scrapping? Nothing yet! I just find reading about physics fascinating and I know it's really nerdy of me. Just wanted South Dakota to have a little bit of it's time in the "SPOT LIGHT".

Scientists are unable to shed light on dark matter after mission to trap the universe's most elusive substance fails
Test aimed to find dark matter which is thought to make up 27% of universe
Dark matter is crucial to proving theories of how the universe is expanding
Experiment took place at the Large Underground Xenon in South Dakota
Scientists now plan to run a detector that is 1,000 more powerful next year.

Full article can be read @mail online

I think your talking about Homestake mine that is about 8,000' deep. I know some folks from Deadwood their family worked the mine for years before it closed.

Homestake Through 2001, the mine produced 39.8 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver.[citation needed] In terms of total production, the Lead mining district, of which the Homestake mine is the only producer was the second-largest gold producer in the United States, after the Carlin district in Nevada."

That sounds like the mine! My sister was telling me about it, she lives in Near Rapid City and sent me the article. Can't remember the East coast university that is also involved.

Stanford University is conducting the experiments. The mine dates back to the 1800's and Deadwood has legalized gambling. Great tourist destination.

The South Dakota School of mines is secretly becoming one of the top science schools in the country. There is a lot of money being put into the facilities there. The particle colider and anti matter are just the beginning. They have a summer camp for 6-12th grade that teaches engineering and they actually let the kids blow stuff up!!!

There is actually a large group of academic and science foundations involved. Sanford Underground Research Facility is the official name of the site. Underground research has been going on there for a long time, since the 1960's. The mine closed in 2003 and mine company donated the property to the state of South Dakota in 2006. T. Denny Sanford donated $70 million to the project, so facility is named for him. The state legislator created the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority to operate the facility, appropriating $40 million in funding. 20011 the Department of Energy through Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories agreed to further underwrite future underground research. Some of the schools involved: South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, University of South Dakota, University of Maryland, University of Rochester, Yale University, College London, Texas A&M, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbra, Case Western Reserve University, Brown University, Edinburgh University, Imperial College London and others. Important research will be done here for a long time, governments, institutions, universities and private individuals have insured South Dakota will be a leader in advance science.