This is likely the last of my Mine Visit entries – don't know why they're so fascinating lately, but yesterday I visited my 5thin the last 6 weeks. Part of it has to do with the fact that I'm where they are, and they're really interesting. Here in northern Minnesota and Michigan, mining was the heart of much of the economic development of the area, in the mid 19th and early 20th century, and some have been preserved for tourists.
Today I visited the Soudan Mine Underground Laboratory at Soudan, Minn. (drove up from Duluth this morning, as I didn't have enough time to both see Soudan and Duluth and still make my rendevous with my cousin on Friday.)
The Soudan Mine was a working iron ore mine for about 80 years (1882 – 1962 I think). It produced high quality ore in huge chunks that steel mills could use without any processing, and was in great demand when open hearth furnaces were used. But, when Blast furnaces came into being, they needed small pellets of iron, and so the processes used at the Mine I visited outside Marquette were developed, and Soudan Mine closed.
In 1965, US Steel donated the Soudan mine to the State of Minnesota, on the condition that it be maintained as a demonstration of a 'deep' mine, and after a touristy type visit by a theoretical physicist, his wife suggested that the mine could be used as the location for a laboratory that needed shielding from cosmic rays for its experiments – and, there, the Soudan Lab was born.
For more detailed info on the Labs and their work, please see: http://www.hep.umn.edu/soudan/brochure.html
Enough to say that we travelled down ½ mile in one of the 'cages' pictured here – the Cages are placed upright, and run on vertical tracks, at a 78 degree angle, at a speed of 10 mph. The cages are made up of two parts – one to carry people (18 at a time); and the second to carry iron ore, 6 tons at a time. It takes 2 ½ minutes to descend 2341 feet to the 27th level, where we went on two tours. The first was a straight mine tour, which followed the descent from the surface with a ¾ mile ride on a little train, horizontally into the mine.
The cage was sort of enclosed, but the guide did go in each time we entered, to shoo out the bats that may have been visiting.
This mine was notable because the seams of iron were so pure and so dense, that no shoring up or drainage was required. Just blast and extract – much simpler than the other mines I saw whose seams of ore were so mixed with other minerals, that constant drainage and shoring up was required through-out.
The Lab tour was separate one, so after a half hour back at the surface, some of us descended again to the 27th level, and toured the theoretical physics lab. This lab was established to capture “neutrinos”, shot from a cyclotron in Illinois – yes, really, 500 miles all underground! Each second, we on the surface are bombarded by trillions of neutrinos, and the physicists want to understand how that affects or is affected by gravity, the atmosphere, the Sun, and outer space. So, by capturing neutrinos which have NOT been affected by rays from the sun, the scientists can help us get to Mars. (I'm about to make my reservation :) Is the lab effective? So far only about 10 neutrinos PER WEEK are captured; but according to the scientists that's fine, as it gives lots of data.
We were told that though the effect of neutrinos can be observed, their existence can't be proven; so physicists had to make up the idea of them, to explain things like gravity. Hold that thought.
There is a second lab on the same level, this one dealing with “dark matter”, that is, the 90% of the universe that we can't see, hear, feel, experience. The idea behind the “Cold Dark Matter” experiments is to show the action of molecules down to absolute zero (minus 480 degrees F), so the molecules can be tracked, as they move much more slowly when it's cold (just like the rest of us?) This lab is tracking “Weakly Interacting Molecule Protons” or WIMPS. Hmmm.
We were told that the concept of 'dark matter' can't be proved, but it must exist to explain how the universe is made up.
[I learned while in Soudan that there is an underground lab in Sudbury also studying neutrinos; but using a different method - guess I'll have to go see that one too sometime. For more info on that, g to http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/
So what's all this mean? I don't know of course – you theoretical physicists out there will understand it all. But for spiritual people, isn't it interesting that even hard scientists, so dedicated to 'proof', have to make up things to explain how the universe started and how it works. For me, the Mine Tours have been a wonderful confirmation of the existence of God, a God who helps scientists find ways to explain Creation and how it works, and helps people like me understand better how the world works.
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