Science Research Buried in a Gold Mine

Visitor center exhibitions at the edge of a neutrino experiment site buried deep under South Dakota, inside one of the largest gold mines in the world. Centered on a giant “negative cast” sculptural mobile and a mineshaft elevator “cage ride,” the exhibitions bring to life something no visitor can see.

The Sanford Lab Homestake in Lead, South Dakota, is home to one of the most advanced astrophysics facilities in the United States and was once America’s largest active gold mine. Today, researchers at the Sanford Lab explore some of the most challenging questions facing 21st-century physics, such as the nature of dark matter. The facility is also the site of a Nobel-Prize-winning neutrino experiment.

But a large portion of the Lab is located a mile underground and is impossible to visit by the wider public. C&G Partners was selected to create permanent exhibits, media, signage and branding for a new Visitor Center.

The Visitor Center is dominated by a giant window overlooking the mine, and a 300 foot long photographic frieze of contemporary and historic images.

The centerpiece of the main exhibition hall is a full-scale “negative cast” sculptural mobile of all 370 miles of the mine’s tunnels and shafts.

The experience also includes an immersive audiovisual “ride” programmed into one of the mine’s decommissioned elevator cages.

C&G Partners was tasked with creating an experience that presented the physical, historical and scientific complexities of the mine era, the four decades of Nobel winning physics experiments, while also presenting a broader overall picture of the City of Lead and the wider Black Hills, as the center also serves as the hub for the local Chamber of Commerce.