I had the opportunity to visit 金沢大学自然計測応用研究センター,　低レベル放射能研究施設 尾小屋地下測定施設 (尾小屋鉱山トンネル) Kanazawa University’s Ogoya Underground Laboratory of Low Level Radioactivity （ＬＬＲＬ） in Noomi shi, Ishikawa ken　（野美市　石川県）　with Professor Komura　小村先生　and his wife Komura san 小村さん.

At the time, Professor Komura was measuring radiation of a men’s pocket watch found after the Hiroshima A-bomb had been dropped.

Nature here is subtropical, like a jungle, and the road to the entrance is small.　Neareby there is a mining and railroad museum.　The temperature was around 40 centigrades, but inside the tunnel it’s so cold one needs a jacket.

Previously there was a copper ore mine, now the tunnel hosts a laboratory 300 meters inside the mountain. The tonnes of stone covering the tunnel makes Ogoya lab one of the most sensitive radioactivity labs in the world. Stone blocks cosmic radiation to its minimum and makes it possible to reach more exact results in measuring low levels of radioactivity found in, for example, items found in Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb was dropped.

An ore mine 100 years old, there used to be little artificial light. Now as there is electricity, wallｓ begin to get color from moss and other growth. Also pretty stalagtites grow from the ceiling, which is dripping water.

300 meters in, there is a small construction site trailer-like cubicle where the detector and other instruments are. The tunnel is damp, slippery, badly lit, wearing a helmet is mandatory, the lab, only a few square meters, is very crowded but the computers are state-of-the-art. What an interesting contrast.

Being a professor does not mean your work is purely white collar. Professor Komura needs to put in place and remove 300 kg of lead blocks every time he needs to measure the radioactivity level of an object.

Whether Japan’s history as the only nation being attacked with atom bombs has impacted the radioactivity research in the country, I don’t know. I do know that Ogoya lab is one of the most sensitive labs in the world, and that they have a world wide cooperative network. I have never met a person who has been to the Antarctic before, but professor Komura has – measuring radioctivity, of course.