The possibility of there being a bio-degradable cause for this increase was discounted after consultation with Rand McNally Dip Ed, Dual Science and History Master at Ilford High School.
Mr McNally said that not only had this phenomenon been encountered in deep English coal mines and South African gold mines, but that temperature increasing with depth had been noted by miners in shafts on the Sofala gold fields in the 1850s and 1860s.
He said that contemporary newspaper accounts reported that many miners had elected to sleep at the bottom of their mine shafts during the cold winter months at both Sofala and Hill End, and that patrons at the Sofala pub had complained that kegs of beer brought up from the cellar were commonly too warm to quench a hard working miner's thirst.
It has been calculated that with increases of one degree Celsius for each metre of depth, burying the Wiruna bunk house to a depth of only 20 metres would make the bedrooms ten degrees warmer in winter. Driving a shaft to two hundred metres would heat water sufficiently to power a steam generator, while warm air from the generator's cooling system could be pumped to observing locations for dew zapping purposes.
Society chef Don Blanchomme is experimenting to determine if thermal steam could be utilised in cooking, and whether the South Pacific Star Party spit roast should be steamed instead.
Anybody finding a fresh road kill en route to Wiruna on new moon weekends is asked to collect and deposit same at the eat-in-kitchen for experimental purposes.