Sanford Underground Research Facility

The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), or Sanford Lab, is an underground laboratory in Lead, South Dakota. The deepest underground laboratory in the United States, it houses multiple experiments in areas such as dark matter and neutrino physics research, biology, geology and engineering. There are currently 28 active research projects housed within the facility.

Sanford Lab is managed by the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority (SDSTA). SURF operations are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and through a $70M donation from T. Denny Sanford. The State of South Dakota also contributed nearly $70 million to the project.