UAR 3538 LSBB - Low Noise Underground Laboratory of Rustrel

Activities

The LSBB is a "Unité Mixte de Service" under the pluri-tutelle of Avignon University and the CNRS.
It is a set of sub-horizontal underground galleries dug into the Grande Montagne limestone massif, on the southern edge of the Albion plateau, in the commune of Rustrel (Vaucluse), which has many qualities (natural and geological environment preserved, non-displaceable and sustainable), and properties (infrastructure inherited from the military site), making this Research and Development platform unique.
The Low Noise Underground Laboratory has 3 main functions:

• hosting and accommodating academic and industrial activities;
• hosting and developing multidisciplinary observations in the framework of national and international observation networks;
• initiation and promotion of exploratory interdisciplinary research projects.

ORGANISATION

Guardianship

• Avignon University (AU)
• CNRS

Direction
Stéphane Gaffet

Deputy Director
Gilles Nicolau, Daniel Boyer

Research activities

• Society and Humanities.
• Underground water resources.
• Interactions between fluids and the environment.
• Wave propagation, radiative environment and fundamental physics.
• Highly sensitive metrology & measurement and experimental methodology.
• Emerging themes: plant, medical imaging, materials.

Partnerships

Development of academic and industrial projects

R&D, industrial qualification benches: XILINX, ONERA, IRSN, GDR Errata, ADEME, COMEX
Rock densitometry: T2DM2, MAIF, INSU/IN2P3, CERN/RD51, CEA/IRFU

International partners (some examples)

EIFER Research Centre in Karlsruhe (Germany), DIAP (Milan Polytechnic), DESTEC (University of Pisa), LISER (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research), EPFL (Lausanne), University of Dakar, University of Tasmania, Maynoot University in Ireland, etc.

Hosting of scientific projects

• EQUIPEX MIGA: Matter wave interferometer, gravitational antenna
• EQUIPEX CRITEX: Groundwater resources, CG vs. peri-Mediterranean issues
• ANR MAXWELL, HPPPCO2, LINES: Rock properties & imaging, CO2 storage metrology
• EEG, ERI3D-4D & EM3D (Collab. UBC/LSBB)
• SIMPLE (CFN Lisbon)
• SQUIDs (European collab. USAV, UAPV, Oxford UK/FR initiative)
• EPHRAT (Bath UK/FR initiative): Electrical and radiative phenomenology over thunderstorms

Industrial demonstrators and society

• Hosting of technological platforms, tests and methodological developments
• Industrial clusters: RISQUES, TRIMATEC, EA-Ecoentreprise, PEGASE, OPTITEC
• Education: primary schools, high schools/colleges, heritage festival

Further information

Skills and know-how

• Sustainable management of groundwater resources and global change.
• Demonstrator of monitoring technologies.
• Instrumentation for exploitation and storage in geological reservoirs.
• Integration into national networks of seismological, magnetic, hydrogeological and geodetic observatories...
• Real-time data dissemination to national and international bodies.
• Observation and modelling of electromagnetic phenomena.
• Integration into the TELERAY network for radioactivity alert for national security.
• Metrology, instrumentation, measurement protocols ;
• A test facility for developing, calibrating and characterising high sensitivity sensors.
• Measurement protocols for multi-physical environmental characterisation.
• Geological, hydrogeological, electromagnetic, radiative, electronic risks...
• Consortium Archive du Monde Contemporain, TGIR HUMA-NUM, Humanité Numérique.
• Labelled as a 20th century heritage site for military works on the Albion plateau.

Specific equipment

• Environment :
         - low level of anthropogenic disturbance ;
         - Unique geological analogue of Urgonian oil fields in the Middle East;
         - access from the surface to the deep unsaturated zone of a major karst aquifer;
         - in the heart of the major seismic zone of Provence.
• Infrastructure :
         - preserved surface access (54 ha) and underground access (~ 4 km);
         - fully equipped (galleries, caves and underground spaces);
         - EM armoured capsule of 1240 m3 at a depth of 518 m.
• A platform for research and R&D:
         - ultra-sensitive experiments low anthropogenic disturbance ;
         - large underground volumes;
         - surface/bottom synchronisation (GPS, FO Internet) ;
         - environmental control and low noise properties.