CHANNEL Four's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures series has paid a visit to the North-East to film a mine which is home to an international science project.

Boulby Potash, Europe's deepest mine, off Boulby, in east Cleveland, accommodates a £3.1m laboratory built 1,100m below the coast. It opened last year to investigate one of the great unanswered mysteries in cosmology - dark matter.

Scientists were filmed at the mine, as part of the series of lectures about space on Channel 4 over Christmas, trying to prove the existence of the particles which are thought to make up 90 per cent of the universe.

Dr Duncan Bulling, from Windfall Films, which filmed the mine, said: "Basically, part of the universe as we know it is missing and there are scientists a long way under the coast at Boulby who are trying to detect it.

"We focused on Boulby because it is part of a massive international project which is happening in the UK.

"We spent a day filming at the mine with two A-level physics students from a school in Whitby."

Chris Gibson, from Cleveland Potash, which is hosting the scientific research, said: "We are delighted to host this international research project and wish the scientists involved every success in their venture."

Published: 10/01/2004