SCIENCE SAFETY: $3.8M overhaul of lab's timber-framed gateway tests human ingenuity, skill

2021 stop-work order sparked years-long undertaking at Sanford Underground Research Facility

(Courtesy of Stephen Kenny / Sanford Underground Research Facility)

Years of work fortifying the inside of a World War II-era mine shaft in western South Dakota that doubles as a gateway to one of the world’s most advanced science labs is complete.

Crews at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) have finished building a timber-framed structure a mile deep into the Black Hills, installing the last of about 2,400 feet of wood lacing one of two shafts used to access underground laboratory space at the Lead facility.

A complex network of timber-framed wood beams that entailed about 400 sets of new framing and the replacement of rock bolts and steel mesh along the shaft walls, the work commanded ingenuity and an exceedingly rare skill set in the hoisters and riggers who conducted the operation.

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