July 21, 2000 - Field Trip to Homestake

Modeling Physics Workshop at Black Hills State University, Summer, 2000,
funded by the SD Eisenhower committee

Rena Faye Norby, Principal Project Investigator

	Here is one of the many sites at Lead that might be telling you you're near a gold mine. We went here to find neutrinos!!!!
	We sit and wait for the elevator. It will drop us some 4600 feet...almost to sea level. ( Would you believe it took almost 40 seconds to travel this 1.4 km distance? )
	If you can see into the dark, everyone is walking in the mine in front of me. It's about a half mile walk between where we got off the elevator to where we need to go.
	As our tour of the neutrino site ends, these three stopped for a Kodak moment. For a brief intro from the experiment director (via media player), click here.
	After shedding our mining lights, we head back to the main plant to get rid of our boots and hats. Look closely & you can see participants from Larry Browning's C³P and Rena Faye Norby's Modeling Physics workshops.
	While in the mine, we felt a great air draft. As you can see, above ground is a small building that is responsible for pumping fresh air into all areas of the mine at all times. In times of danger, a strong odor will be added to alert everone.
	This is a view of the open cut. We thought they might stop us on the way out to check us for gold we may have picked up along the way...but they didn't. I guess none of us looked like we weighed a ton.!.!
	Current mining practices show that Homestake has to mine & refine about a ton of rock before they have recovered an ounce of gold. Today's gold price was about $300. Just a few years ago it was over $600