Samir Patel reports that the prototype muon detector can identify stacks of bricks through concrete roof of a laboratory. A plot of the data shows that fewer muons make it through the densest material. Similarly, buildings around the detector cast muon shadows. A narrow green band corresponds to a corridor within the building. A similar signal might indicate a tomb in a Maya pyramid.
In what was once a low-energy nuclear physics lab on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, particle physicist Roy Schwitters stands next to a gaping hole in the floor of a cavernous, garage-like workshop. In the hole, which is surrounded by day-glo orange safety netting, is the Schwitters prototype, an almost featureless aluminum cylinder 5 feet in diameter that extends 14 feet to a sub-floor. It looks like a missile in a silo, but it is a particle detector, silently counting cosmic particles called muons. Based on the number and direction of muons the detector senses, it sees a pile of bricks on top of the building 3-foot-thick concrete roof. Schwitters and UT Austin archaeologist, Fred Valdez, plan to use this technology to take a picture of the inside of a Maya pyramid at the jungle-covered site of La Milpa in Belize next year.
Resource Portal for I2M Clients, Associates, and Geoscientists
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-