The Berkeley Low Background Facility and the Black Hills State University Underground Campus at SURF

The Berkeley Low Background Facility at LBNL provides a variety of low background gamma spectroscopy services to a variety of projects and experiments. It operates HPGe spectrometers in two unique facilities: a surface low background lab at LBNL and underground (4300 m.w.e.) at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD. A large component of the measurements performed by the BLBF are for ultralow background experiments concerned with U, Th, K, and other radioisotopes within candidate construction materials to be used to construct sensitive detectors, such as those studying dark matter or neutrinos. The BLBF also makes a variety of environmental measurements in search of other radioisotopes, such as fallout from the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in 2011 and other radioisotope monitoring activities. A general overview of the services and facilities will be presented. In 2015, the BLBF will be relocating its underground counting stations to a new, dedicated space on the 4850L of SURF. The Black Hills State University Underground Campus will host several low background counting stations and operate in a coordinated manner to provide low background measurements to the scientific community. An overview and description of the BHUC will be presented.