The benefits of a proposed Deep Science Initiative would add up to more than the sum of its component disciplines: physics and astrophysics, geomicrobiology, evolutionary biology, geoscience and engineering. When scientists pursue their research interests in company with others from different backgrounds, new ideas emerge. Each field of science has its own vocabulary, technology and way of seeing. Insights from the intersections of the separate disciplines are often the source of scientific and technological breakthroughs. Think, for example, of the profound implications for particle physics of the astrophysical observations of dark matter and dark energy, or the advances in the characterization of protein structure in biology provided by particle-accelerating light sources from physics. What might the synergies of underground research bring forth? We can anticipate a few possibilities.
Physicists use giant underground detectors in order to discover rare and subtle signatures of particular phenomena of the universe. Geoengineers lead the way in developing safe and cost-effective methods of excavation and underground construction. Geoscientists are gaining an ever-more-sophisticated understanding of rock structure and behavior under varying conditions. An underground laboratory would provide the opportunity to develop new techniques of underground engineering to enable physicists to deploy massive detectors, and, with the help of their geo-colleagues, to observe rare processes such as the conversion of antimatter to matter.
The interdisciplinary link between biological science, hydrogeology and geochemistry is another key synergy. Each depends on carefully controlled access to uncontaminated environments, and microbial populations are strongly influenced by the flow paths of water and solutions. Similarly, studies in rock mechanics, fracture propagation, fracture permeability, fluid flow, rock failure, and geophysical imaging of fractures are all closely intertwined.
An early example of scientific synergy between physics and geoscience has already begun. Geoscientists are turning the normally outward-looking "eyes" of physicists' massive and intricate neutrino detectors inward to search for geoneutrinos from the earth's interior. Some theories predict that much of the earth's heat, and hence its geomagnetic field, comes not only from the decay of radioactive materials within the earth, but perhaps also from a uranium-rich core that may once have functioned or may still function as a nuclear reactor. If the theory is correct, these nuclear reactions would produce detectable neutrinos. Using a neutrino detector, the search for geoneutrinos from earth's core has begun. The detection of neutrinos typical of a nuclear reactor, but coming from the earth's core, would confirm the existence of a georeactor and radically alter concepts of planetary evolution.
Microorganisms in the deep subsurface degrade petroleum to carbon dioxide at rates that are at least a million times slower than the rates of surface microbes. Such a glacial pace of life suggests that an individual microbe may be anywhere from 100 to 100,000 years old. Using the low-level counting facilities constructed underground by physicists, biologists may be able to determine whether underground microbes are "as old as Methusela." By coupling physicists' photon detector technologies with the bioluminescence molecules used by biologists, underground researchers could develop the next generation of life- sensing technologies to examine subsurface microbial processes at natural rates and in their natural habitats.
Besides the depth and accessibility of its premier laboratory facility, DUSEL, a Deep Science Initiative would offer a rare opportunity to support scientific synergy among disciplines that have traditionally had little interaction. In a time when the trend is toward increasingly narrow scientific specialization, such an underground "melting pot" of disciplines would provide a unique environment for innovation leading to as- yet-unimagined discoveries and undreamed- of applications.
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