This is Gonna Get Deep!

[petehowell]

Andi and I found ourselves with a suddenly free Friday afternoon, so we decided to head north to check something off of our trip list, the Soudan Mine near Tower, Minnesota.



We had a nice push on the way up, seeing ground speeds over 175 knots, making the trip less than an hour. The 15kt cross wind and uneven terrain at 12D made for a landing we will not elaborate on.....

Both airport cars were kaput, but a call to a local RVer got us quickly set up with a ride the for day- seriously, RV friends are the Best! It is only 3 miles over to the mine and we were soon getting hardhats and the briefing to go down.


The tram to the bottom is raised and lowered with a complex system of cables that wind about a drum.




This is no junior varsity mine, it is not a few hundred feet down, it is a few thousand! After a 3min tram ride, you are greeted with this!


You then board a mine train for 3/4 mile ride down a shaft. The lovely Dayna was our head tour guide.


At the end of the line, you get out and explore large mining area under nearly a 1/2 mile of solid rock!




After an hour, we headed back to the surface, but after a bathroom break and some time in the warm sun (it is a chilly 50degF in the mine) were were headed back down....... to the lab.

Being under 2,300ft of solid rock provides a pretty interesting and isolated environment, including one of the places on earth most isolated from cosmic rays. So isolated, in fact, that they built a complete physics lab down there!

The lab is part of the University of Minnesota and they were/are studying proton decay and neutrinos. Our tour guide, Pete, made the whole thing fun and approachable. They actually fire particles from Fermilab in Chicago at this lab thru over 400 miles of the earth. The science is in what they catch in the detector.

In keeping with the "Go Big or Go Home" Theme of this place, the lab is not just a few rooms, it is what the Donald would say is "Yuuuge"..... play wiffle ball huge(The MINOS cavern is 82 meters (270') long, 15 meters (50') wide, and 13 meters(40') high!)



You know it is good if it was named the #1 Nerd Road Trip in 'Merica!


After an hour in the lab, it was back to the surface, a quick dinner in town, and a great sunset over the lake on departure.


Andi's father was a High Energy Physicist at Iowa State and we both thought he would have loved this place. If you are ever up North - it is well worth the trip!

[Ironflight]

Pete - you've now seen the birthplace of my call sign! My grandfather was a miner there, my Dad grew up in Tower (among a dozen other Range towns), and I spent many summers as a kid doing the Huck Finn thing on Lake Vermillion. That runway used to be a grass strip, and there were always a couple of ratty Cubs and Champs tied down out there that I'd peer in to.

My NASA call sign honors all those who have worked the Mesabi and Vermillion Ranges over the past century.

Great to see some recent pictures!

Paul

[AlexPeterson]

Too cool, Pete! I need to check that out for myself. Somewhere just a little deeper, I believe the earth starts getting much warmer.

[Louise Hose]

Thanks Pete for sharing. I really want to get there some time.

[hoyden]

Soudan Mine is one of my favorite places to visit when going up north. All of my trips have been in 4 wheel vehicles. I have wondered how to do it with 3.

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

Let me get this straight: There were TWO airport cars and neither one of them worked.

Boy if that isn't the Iron Range in 2015, I don't know what is.

[turbo]

thanks for a very interesting thread. found lots of great info on this subject.

ironflight brings on a whole new meaning now.

[Infidel]

Thank you for sharing and as a long time Spelunker and subterranean explorer, you just put this on my bucket list. Can't imagine I'd get anywhere deeper than there!

[RKellogg]

Thanks for the great write-up Pete! Been meaning to get there to see the detector, since I did a wee bit of the engineering that went into the 48 foot long PVC extrusions that make up the MINOS detector. (I don't think I'm claustrophobic... but for the most part, I prefer to see blue sky over my head.)

[dougweil]

Got to get up there. Sounds like a great tour!