For more than three decades astrophysicists have been operating experiments to search for Dark Matter - the missing mass in the Universe - 1100m below ground in a purpose-built 'low-background' facility at Boulby mine in the North East of England. This facility - the Boulby Underground Laboratory - is one of just a few places in the world suited to hosting these and other science projects requiring a 'quiet environment', free of interference from natural background radiation. The race to find Dark Matter is still on and Boulby currently operates the CYGNUS directional dark matter detector and is helping to build one of the world’s most sensitive Dark Matter Detectors ‘LZ’, which is a next-generation system based on the ZEPLIN detector technology previously developed at Boulby. In the meantime the range of science projects looking for the special properties of deep underground facilities is growing and new projects operating at Boulby range from astro & particle physics to studies of geology/geophysics, climate, the environment, life extreme environments on Earth and beyond. This talk will give an overview of the Boulby Underground Laboratory, the science currently supported and plans for science at Boulby in the future.

About the speaker: Prof. Sean Paling

Prof. Sean Paling. Director & Snr Scientist at the STFC Boulby Underground Laboratory.