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Replacing the steel in the Ross Shaft requires sophisticated equipment. Custom-made work decks have replaced the Ross cage and north skip. (The "cage" is a conveyance for people and equipment. A "skip' is a conveyance to remove rock from underground.) A smaller Sky Climber lift runs up and down the shaft in a parallel compartment, between the cage and skip compartments. Two blue Gorbel cranes are available to remove old steel and maneuver new steel into place.
Crews replacing steel in the Ross Shaft have refurbished 426 feet of the shaft, which puts them 36 feet above the 300 Level. “I’m proud of the guys,” Ross Shaft Foreman George Vandine says. “They’ve done a nice job.” Four crews of four, plus two toplanders, are working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week on the project.
On Sunday researchers working on the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment finished filling the dark matter detector with liquid xenon.
The process had begun Thursday. Yale University physicist Dan McKinsey, a spokesman for LUX, was underground that morning, but he pointed out that most of the work was being done by young postdocs and even younger graduate students.
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter detector obviously could not operate without its main ingredient—xenon—and last Wednesday 400 kilograms were delivered. “As of 10:05 a.m. today, the full inventory of LUX xenon was in the clean space in the Davis Campus,” Science Director Jaret Heise reported in an email. “Congrats to everyone involved!” Laboratory Director Mike Headley responded, “Thanks for getting this done safely!”
