From academia, industry and science outreach fields, muographers from several countries (including Finland, Italy, Hungary, Chile, Japan, and the UK) met in the rescheduled Muographers 2020 online conference “Muography and the Possibilities at Callio Lab, Finland” to discuss future plans. Prof. Hiroyuki Tanaka (Virtual Muography Institute & the University of Tokyo), Prof. Giovanni Leone (MoonShot consortium) and Mr. Jari Joutsenvaara, (Callio Lab research coordinator, University of Oulu) gave the opening remarks.
After a brief introduction of muography, the Virtual Muography Institute (VMI) and the VMI projects including the Hyper KiloMetric Submarine (Subterranean) Deep Detector (HKMSDD) now under construction inside the 4th-largest underwater tunnel in the world: Tokyo Bay Aqualine-Aquatunnel, Japan (Hungary, Japan and UK in the future phase) and HKMSDD in the Boulby Mine, UK (UK and Japan), Sakurajima Muography Observatory, Japan (Hungary and Japan) and Etna Muography Observatory, Italy (Italy, Hungary, and Japan), as well as global virtual research spaces were presented and plans to collaborate with Callio Lab in future muography international activities were introduced by Hiroyuki Tanaka.
Giovanni Leone discussed efforts to increase muography collaborations in order to expand to new topics such as planetary geological projects, for example, as part of the Moonshot consortium (a group proposing research on the South Pole of the moon). An overview of the facilities of Callio Lab (part of the University of Oulu, Finland) was presented by Jari Joutsenvaara emphasizing its potential for enabling new kinds of international muography research. Callio Lab has been utilizing the existing infrastructure of the Pyhäsalmi mine for scientific research.
There were also presentations during the workshop session: Prof. Dezső Varga (Senior Researcher/Group Leader, Wigner RCP) discussed muon detector development, Dr. Marko Holma (CEO, Chief Geologist, M.Sc. at Muon Solutions) discussed potential geological targets for muography in Finland, and Prof. Elena Kozlovskaya (Mining Engineering and Mineral Processing research group, University of Oulu) suggested some of the practical planning and steps that need to be taken to bring to fruition some of the ideas brought up by Dr. Pasi Kuusiniemi (Instruments Physicist at Muon Solutions), Prof. Giovanni Leone, Prof. Dezső Varga, Dr. Marko Holma, Prof. Hiroyuki Tanaka, and Mr. Jari Joutsenvaara during the workshop.