What is Going on Underneath this Old South Dakota Mine?

South Dakota is home to many things: Mount Rushmore, The Black Hills, and also a secret underground facility conducting some of the most mind-boggling experiments on earth.

Up until it closed, the Homestake Mine in Lead was the most extensive and deepest goldmine in the entire United States. In its 126-year history, the mine produced a staggering 41 million ounces of gold.

When the mine closed 20 years ago, many speculated as to what would happen to it. Who would buy the property and what would it be used for?

Enter, Sanford Underground Research Facility.

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So, what do they do at the Sanford Underground Research Facility? In part, experimentation with Dark Matter, a hypothetical form of matter that is thought to account for 85 percent of the matter in our universe.

Here's what the Sanford Underground Research Facility has to say on its website:

The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) houses world-leading physics experiments that could give us a better understanding of the universe. Located at the former Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota, SURF provides significant depth and rock stability—a near-perfect environment for experiments that need to escape the constant bombardment of cosmic radiation, which can interfere with the detection of rare physics events. The facility also hosts experiments in biology, geology and engineering.

-Sanford Underground Facility Website

In short, they are working on many exciting things at over a mile underneath the earth's surface.

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To watch a Sanford Underground Research Facility video, check out the YouTube video below.

Story Source: Sanford Underground Research Facility Website