Sean Paling (Boulby Underground Laboratory)

Deep Science @ Boulby Underground Laboratory:

Status and future plans for the UK’s deep underground science facility

The STFC Boulby Underground Laboratory, operating in working mine in NE England, is the UK’s deep underground science facility and one of the few special facilities in the world suited to studies requiring ultra-low background radiation experimental space and/or general access to the deep underground environment.

Boulby hosts a range of pure and applied science from astroparticle physics to Earth and environmental science, astrobiology and planetary exploration technology development. Most prominently Boulby is an important part of the UK’s direct Dark Matter search programme. Both UK and Boulby have been very influential in the global Dark Matter search effort in the last few decades, and the international race to solve this important cosmological problem is still very much on. STFC and Boulby Lab are now planning for major expansion of facilities and science at Boulby in the coming decade, working towards building a major new facility to host next generation Dark Matter search projects and more from 2030+.

This talk will give an overview of life and all science in the current Boulby facility and describe the future facility and science expansion plans currently being developed.

Speaker Bio: Director of Boulby Underground Laboratory since 2010. Prior to this was post-doctoral researcher for Sheffield University involved in Dark Matter projects operating at Boulby. Prior to that worked in a combination of medical imaging and astrophysics positions in the UK and USA, after doing first degrees (in Physics and astrophysics) in York and Leeds.