Subterranean Laboratories


An underground laboratory is a research facility located deep below the earth’s surface.

As a rule, existing cavities are used for this purpose, in particular disused mines, tunnels or, in rare cases, caves. Sometimes the halls are specially dug for the laboratory if nothing suitable is available. The most important reason why this effort is made is to shield against cosmic radiation and environmental influences of all kinds. Extremely sensitive particle physics experiments, as well as geophysical experiments and, in the case of natural caves, biological investigations, require special measures.

We don't have very many examples on showcaves.com, which is not because there are so few. The problem is that most such labs are secret or simply cannot be visited. Since we only list tourist destinations, at least a public guided tour must be offered.

A word about caves: there are many laboratories in caves, usually with the aim of researching aspects of the cave. For example, there is a laboratory in France that breeds cave olms. But geophysics is also a topic, for example, an earthquake measuring device was set up in the Grotta Gigante in Italy to measure the tides of the earth's crust. The measuring device has a height of 100 metres in order to achieve the necessary accuracy, and vibrations from lorries or other machines would also interfere with the measurement.

The following laboratories are very important from a scientific point of view, but it is not possible to visit them. Nevertheless, we wanted to mention the most important ones at least once. Below is a list of underground laboratories we have listed. Sometimes the site is listed, but because there is a cave or mine tour, which does not include the laboratory.