A great draw of physics, especially particle and astrophysics, is the list of exotic locations available to study the origin of the universe. Jodi has traveled from the soaring heights of the Antarctic plateau to the depths of the earth in the Soudan Mine (a total vertical distance of 12000 ft, assuming sea level to be the zero-point). This trip to Soudan is a vacation for me, but a shift for Jodi. Today, I get to join her down in the mine.
As usual, we woke up around 6:30 am to make coffee, eat breakfast, and get ready for the day. Today, however, I “also donned a hardhat”:/photos/Soudan-Aug-2006/img031.jpeg.html and joined Jodi on the short drive up the mountain to the shaft of the Soudan mine. We arrived on a beautiful morning, walking up from the parking lot with a perfect view of the “mineshaft elevator tower”:/photos/Soudan-Aug-2006/img032.jpeg.html. From the top of the mountain, you can see down into the valley below, all the way to “hills pushed up by glaciers during an ice age and beyond, to the Laurentian Divide”:/photos/Soudan-Aug-2006/img033.jpeg.html.
The last time I made this trip, it was on a tour, so we had the luxury of light for the elevator ride down 2300 ft. This morning was a working ride, and we stood in the pitch black darkness of the mineshaft. I have never experienced a darkness so complete, broken only by the unexpected flash of light from occasional levels of the mine complex. The rock and roar of the mine elevator, angling down into the shaft, along with the pitch blackness made it hard to hear and impossible to see. There may have been six people in that elevator, or none at all. It reminded me of a terrifying quote from a terrible movie (“Event Horizon”): “Where we’re going, you won’t need eyes.”
