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A technical design for a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) : NSF to California-Berkeley

The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced selection of a University of California-Berkeley proposal to produce a technical design for a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) at the former Homestake gold mine near Lead, S.D. The Homestake team, headed by Kevin Lesko, could receive up to $5 million per year for up to three years.

A 22-member panel of external experts, all screened for conflicts of interest, exhaustively merit-reviewed proposals from four teams and unanimously determined that the Homestake proposal offered the greatest potential for developing a DUSEL, and NSF concurred with the panel's recommendation. The agency's selection of the Homestake proposal provides funding only for design work. Any decision to construct and operate a DUSEL would entail a sequence of approvals by NSF and the National Science Board; funding would then have to be requested by the Administration and approved by Congress.

"We are excited about the opportunities in underground research and education that a DUSEL would provide and look forward to working with all of the research communities to develop a well-conceived plan for this unique, world-leading facility at the Homestake Mine," said Tony Chan, assistant director for the NSF Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. "In tandem with the design of the facility infrastructure, NSF also will begin working with researchers to identify the initial suite of experiments that might be deployed in DUSEL."

Over the past decade, a dozen "blue-ribbon" independent reports from the National Academies and multiagency government committees have emphasized the need for a DUSEL, and various candidate sites have been discussed. In September 2006, NSF solicited proposals to produce technical designs for a DUSEL at one specific site. By the January 2007 deadline, four teams, each focusing on a different location, had submitted proposals.

The review panel included outside experts from relevant science and engineering communities and from supporting fields such as human and environmental safety, underground construction and operations, large project management, and education and outreach. Scientists from Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada also served on the panel. The review process included site visits by panelists to all four locations, and two meetings to review the information, debate and vote on which--if any--of the proposals would be recommended for funding.

The concept of DUSEL grew out of the need for an interdisciplinary "deep science" laboratory that would allow researchers to probe some of the most compelling questions in modern science. Among them: What are the invisible dark matter and dark energy that comprise more than 95 percent of everything visible in the universe? What is the nature of ghostly particles called neutrinos that pervade the cosmos, but almost never interact with matter, and what can certain kinds of extremely rare radioactivity and particle decay reveal about the fundamental behavior of atoms? Will this site help reliably predict and control earthquakes? What are the characteristics of microorganisms at great depth?

Those and other crucial questions can only be investigated at great depth, where thousands of feet of rock can shield ultra-sensitive physics experiments from background activity, and where geoscientists, biologists and engineers can have direct access to geological structures, tectonic processes and life forms that cannot be studied fully in any other way. Several countries, including Canada, Italy and Japan, have extensive deep science programs. The United States has no existing facilities below a depth of 1 kilometer.

If eventually built as envisioned by its supporters, a Homestake DUSEL would be the largest and deepest facility of its kind in the world.

News inside News:

The Need to go Deep

A number of scientific investigations require an underground environment -- the deeper the better. For
example, there are questions important to the fields of astrophysics and physics that cannot be answered unless experiments are shielded from cosmic rays and other background radiation by thousands of feet of rock. Homestake is the deepest mine in the United States, reaching a depth of more than 8,000 feet. With over 375 miles of existing tunnels, it is ideally suited for conversion into a scientific research facility.

“The Homestake mine is a vast site capable of hosting a comprehensive suite of experiments in all major fields of science, including low background physics experiments and particle and nuclear physics experiments that require very large detectors,” said Lesko. “The site can simultaneously host multidisciplinary deep sub-surface studies in geosciences, geoengineering and microbiology.”

The Homestake proposal calls for two major deep underground facility levels. One level will serve research operating from the surface on down to 4,850 feet. Construction of the “Laboratory at 4850” will entail modification of an existing scientific site and preparation of new experimental chambers. The other facility is planned for the 7,400 foot depth level. A large network of existing caverns, drifts, ramps and boreholes will serve as the basis for the future construction of this second level over the next 30 years.

“Our plans also include a near surface facility with drive- in access for experiments that require only modest shielding,” said Lesko. “In addition, potential users have requested access to depth levels at 2,000, 4,100 and 8,000 feet. Our task is to tailor the Homestake site for science access and reduce its foot-print to only the areas of greatest scientific interest.”

Science at Homestake-SUSEL**

Prominent among the experiments that require the ultra-low backgrounds realized at great depths are studies of the elusive, ghostlike sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos. In recent years, experiments at other underground neutrino laboratories have confirmed that the neutrino, once thought to be a massless particle, does indeed have a small amount of mass, and that the three families of neutrinos transform, or oscillate, between families. Like all great discoveries, this finding has raised new questions. A next generation of neutrino experiments at the much greater depths of Homestake should help provide answers.

“For example, detection of neutrinoless double beta decay, which can be done at Homestake’s SUSEL, is the only way to determine whether neutrinos are their own anti-particle,” said Lesko, a veteran neutrino researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division.

To fully understand the neutrino, Lesko said beams of neutrinos originating from Fermilab, outside of Chicago, can be sent through nearly a thousand miles of rock to large detectors in Homestake. These detectors will search for evidence of a rare physical process, known as “leptonic CP violation,” that may help explain why the universe is dominated by matter rather than anti-matter.

“These same detectors could also be used to search for nucleon decay, a long sought signal of Grand Unified Theories,” Lesko said.

Other astrophysical research planned for SUSEL include studies of nuclear astrophysics, future generation gravity wave detectors, geoneutrino and solar neutrino experiments. Scientists at SUSEL will also get a closer than ever look at the earth’s crust and new opportunities for monitoring the movement of groundwater. In addition, they will be able to examine the unique biochemistry of organisms that thrive under heat and pressure conditions which would be deadly to surface dwellers. Carbon sequestration efforts – the idea of safely burying global warming gases like carbon dioxide underground – should also receive a significant boost.

Said Joseph Wang, a scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division, and a senior Homestake proposal investigator, “A flag-ship earth science experiment at SUSEL could involve geomicrobiology searches for the limits of, extent of, and details of life in the underground. These investigations would probe fundamental questions at the crossroads of biology and geology, including whether there are new or very old forms of life underground.”

Added Lesko, “Experiments at SUSEL will also open entire new avenues for basic engineering studies that could extend our understanding of rock properties, create and stabilize future excavations, and develop new technologies and techniques to create safer underground environments.”

History of the Homestake Proposal

Homestake was the site of the single largest gold deposit ever found in the Western Hemisphere. Mining operations, which began in 1876 and continued until 2001, yielded 40 million ounces of gold. In 1965, nuclear physicist Raymond Davis, of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), set up the world’s first solar neutrino detector at the 4,850 foot depth level, and conducted the research that won him a share of the 2002 Nobel Prize in physics. Two years after mining operations ceased, Governor Rounds established a project to oversee transfer of the Homestake property from Barrick Gold Corporation, which had earlier merged with the Homestake Mining Company, with the ultimate goal of converting the mine into a deep underground science and engineering laboratory.

In 2004, at the urging of the Governor, the South Dakota legislature created the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority to oversee the Homestake conversion project and subsequently allocated $35 million for the effort. In addition, a $10 million federal Housing and Urban Development grant was secured for rehabilitating the mine’s infrastructure. This HUD grant is now being used for reopening the shafts and installing pumping equipment to remove water from the lower levels.

In 2004, Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley organized the Homestake Collaboration, with Lesko at the helm. Bill Roggenthen, professor of geology and geological engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, became the Homestake Collaboration’s co-principal investigator.

In his statement following the NSF announcement, Governor Rounds said, “We must all extend our deep appreciation to Barrick Gold Corporation and Homestake Mining Company for generously donating the mine, surface buildings and inventory. I also want to publicly thank the NSF for its thorough selection process and the Homestake Collaboration scientists for the tremendous amount of time and talent invested in making Homestake’s case.”

In addition to Lesko and Wang, Berkeley Lab researchers and staff who contributed to the successful Homestake proposal include Yuen-dat Chan, Nikolai Tolich, and Alan Poon of the Nuclear Science Division; Hitoshi Murayama, Michael Barnett, Stewart Loken and William Chinowsky from the Physics Division; Mark Conrad, Terry Hazen, Rohit Salve, and Eric Sonnenthal of the Earth Sciences Division; Dick DiGennaro, the Homestake Project Manager from Berkeley Lab’s Engineering Division, and Dianna Jacobs from the Project Management Office.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California.

Release link: http://www.lbl.gov/