Underground multimuon experiment in the Pyhäsalmi mine

An experiment to observe simultaneous, multiple muon events originating from extensive air showers is under preparation. The experiment will be situated in shallow depths in the Pyhasalmi mine in Finland, where the existing free caverns will be used. The aim is to cover an area of about 200 - 300 m(2). The detection of the multimuon events is motivated by partly unknown composition of the primary cosmic rays in the energy region of 10(15) - 10(16) eV, i.e. the 'knee' region. A prototype detector is under construction and is expected to be running at the spring 2005.