The Cadia East–Far East deposit occupies a mineralised zone 2.5 km in strike length, 600 m in width and over 1,900 m in vertical extent. It is located below and to the east of the Cadia Hill deposit.

Geology
Mineralisation is developed in the FRV, and in a series of subvertical to steeply northdipping monzodioritic to quartz monzonitic dykes, that are termed the Cadia Far East intrusive complex (CFEIC). The syn-mineral nature of at least some of the intrusions is indicated by the presence of mineralised xenoliths within monzonite porphyry dykes that also host porphyry-style veining and alteration.

The Weemalla Formation has been intersected at depth, and consists of finely-bedded siltstone interbedded with basaltic volcanic rocks. Overlying this unit are five lithofacies of the FRV:

* Upper bedded unit: about 80 m thickness of finely planar-laminated feldspathic siltstone;
* Volcaniclastic unit: approximately 200 m thickness of sandy matrix polymictic conglomerate and volcaniclastic sandstones and locally volcanic breccia;
* Lower bedded unit: around 60 m thickness of bedded calcareous sandstone typically altered to skarn mineral assemblages;
* Massive volcanic rocks: about 150 m thickness of massive pyroxene phyric basalt to andesite lavas;
* Lower sequence: at least 1,100 m thickness of polymictic conglomerates and volcaniclastic sandstones.

Intrusive porphyry dykes and sills are interpreted to be co-e ........

Ore is mined underground at Cadia from the Cadia East deposit using the panel cave form of the block cave method.

Mine development at Cadia East commenced in 2012 with commercial production following in 2013 and is now a very large-scale underground mining operation adjacent to the Cadia Hill open pit.

Current mining operations in production at Cadia East consist of three mature panel caves and two developing panel caves.

Caves in production
PC1-1, PC2-1 (PC2-West), and PC2-2 (PC2-East) are in production and have been for some time.

Cadia East is accessed via two declines, the main access decline, and the conveyor decline.

Panel Cave mining from Cadia East with underground crushing and conveyor to surface.

The mining method applied at Cadia East is panel caving, a variant of block caving.
Extracting ore by panel caving involves a series of steps:
* development of an access decline to the bottom of the orebody, an undercut level (to blast the ore), an extraction level (to remove the ore) and drawbells (through which ore gravitates from the undercut level to the extraction level);
* undercutting a block of ore to induce caving of the rock mass (which results in “fragmentation” or breaking of the ore);
* removal of the broken ore from the extraction level via load-haul-dump fleet to underground crushing stations; and
* transportation of the crushed ore via conveyor to a coarse or ........

Concentrator 1:

• Primary crushing in a 60-inch x 113-inch gyratory crusher. This was the main primary crusher for the original Cadia concentrator and now primarily used for surface stockpile reclaim;
• Coarse ore stockpile (COS) to a live capacity of 40,000 t and subsequent reclaim facilities;
• Distribution bin and double-deck vibrating screens for feed size preparation;
• Secondary crushing, treating screen oversize, using MP1000 cone crushers;
• High pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) unit treating screen undersize prior to the SAG mill;
• Primary open circuit milling in a single 40-ft SAG mill fitted with a 20 MW motor. The motor will be upgraded to 22 MW. Oversize pebbles from the SAG mill are returned to the distribution bin;
• Secondary milling in three ball mills, with the two original mills fitted with 8.7 MW motors, and a more recently installed third ball mill with a 16 MW motor. The mills are in closed circuit with cyclone classification for a target grind size of P80 of 150–190 µm.

Concentrator 2:

• Reclaim and conveying system to transfer ore from Concentrator 1 COS to Concentrator 2 facilities;
• Secondary and tertiary crushing using MP800 cone crushers and open circuit prescreening;
• Dedicated coarse (crushed) ore stockpile (COS) and apron feeder reclaim facilities;
• Primary open circuit milling in a single SAG mill fitted with a 7.5 MW motor;
• Secondary milling using a 7.5 MW ball mill and parallel Vertimill VTM1250, in closed circuit with classifying cyclones.
• Tertiary milling using a Vertimill VTM 3000.

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