Eagle East deposit was discovered in an undrilled area !Nothing is over when your digging in the dirt until youv'e dug up every SQ inch !!!
Construction of the Eagle Mine, an underground nickel and copper mine, commenced in April 2010 and underground development began in September 2011. The Humboldt Mill was refurbished and the Eagle Mine achieved commercial production in November 2014. From 2002 to 2008, Rio Tinto drilled more than 50 holes in the Eagle East intrusion, ... ""identifying uneconomic, largely disseminated, mineralization""".
In June 2015, LMC announced the discovery of very high grade magmatic nickel-copper mineralization similar in style to the Eagle deposit, located approximately two kilometres east of the Eagle Mine. The Eagle East deposit was discovered in an undrilled area approximately 960 m deep.
Eagle East is a separate intrusion from the Eagle deposit that was previously known to contain uneconomic levels of nickel and copper in the upper portions. Previous drilling at Eagle East determined that at depth, the intrusion necks down to a narrow, barren dyke. Eagle geologists postulated that the narrow dyke should be sourced in a larger magma chamber and used directional drilling to trace the dyke, eventually resulting in the discovery.