SNOLAB recently celebrated the official grand opening of their underground facilities in northern Ontario. The underground laboratory is an expansion of SNO’s (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory) original facility located two kilometers underground, making it the deepest and cleanest particle astrophysics laboratory in the world.
Dr. David Sinclair, Director of Facility Development for SNOLAB said of the opening, “We are delighted to have reached the point in this project where the construction of the laboratory is complete and the implementation of the scientific program can succeed. We look forward to an exciting period of discovery in the years ahead.”
Dr. Nigel Smith, Director of SNOLAB added that, “As SNOLAB marks its formal opening, our science workshop has given us the chance to reflect on the vibrant international science program that we host, with world-leading science results already being delivered by projects at SNOLAB, and great promise from the future projects being developed.”
The construction of the underground laboratories of SNOLAB has been funded by the International Joint venture program of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, Ontario Research Fund (ORF), Vale and FEDNOR. Operating costs have been supported by The Ontario Research Fund's research Excellence Program, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Vale by CFI and by the member institutions. The city of Sudbury is providing a 5-year grant for public education for the new developments at SNOLAB.
TRIUMF salutes SNOLAB for this great achievement. As an engineering and technical resource for the research community, TRIUMF is actively involved in the new suite of SNOLAB's detectors and experiments including HALO, SNO+, DEAP, and so on.
Congratulations to SNOLAB and the whole team!
--Based off a SNOLAB news story