9.10

An addendum to 6.24, which highlighted the height differential of states.

At the time, I had a good idea, but not the resources to establish its relevance. Today, I come to you a completed man whose hypothesis not only bears up under scrutiny, but also TOTALLY RULES. If you will recall Nevada, whose Comstock Lode caused a thousand-meter deep hole, I thought perhaps the deepest mine in the United States would certainly change the elevation span of a state considerably. Imagine my disappointment when I found that the Combination Shaft is still 105 Ru Pauls above the state lowpoint. Devestation.

Then, I chanced to listen to a single episode of Radio Lab. You can not fathom my excitement at the fathomless depths of the Homestake mine. The advertised depth is consistent across all sites: 8000ft (2438m) straight down. I searched for a long time for the exact height and found it just as I gave up to look for the surface elevation in Lead, SD (2510m, if you're wondering). So, ladies and germs, it is my most intense pleasure to introduce to you the newest entry to the Can I Hang-Glide Your State competition:

South Dakota: Demonstrably the quietest place in the universe
Highest: Harney Peak. Lowest: God bless the Homestake Mine. 26.4 m/m. A paltry 63km from the highest point in the state, man's greed made him dig a hole so deep it literally enters the mesopelagic zone of the ocean. It costs $250,000 a month just to pump the water out. The mine is two and a half times lower than the Combination Shaft. It might be the deepest standable spot in the country, since it bottoms out 216m lower than Badwater Basin, the widely-touted lowest point. South Dakota has a better glide ratio than California, too.


Some notes about the depth of the Homestake:
They got 40,000,000 troy ounces of gold from the mine, which is $44,500,000,000. It's a cube of gold 4 meters to a side. It's 300 bathtubs full of gold. That's 1240 metric tons of gold. That's 200 elephants.
The depth it reaches beneath sea level is the current record dive (withstanding 30.95 atm, which is 1/3 Venus' air pressure at surface level).
You could fit ten Hindenburgs straight down into the mine. You could stack three Burj Khalifas in the same height. THREE.
If you fired a 9mm handgun at the bottom, the bullet wouldn't even pop out in Lead (which is an ironic name, now I'm looking at this).
If I jumped down the shaft, I would reach the bottom going 500mph or 220m/s (without air resistance, but with it's about 2/3 that). Sadly, I can't beat Felix Baumgartner, but I could watch three vines and miss the punchline of the fourth. If I practiced for a couple years, I could memorize an entire deck of cards. I could be really disappointed that I watched this. I could break Wolfram Alpha. All in all, this was a valid trade for an hour of sleep. As always, here's the data.