The next discovery may already be in a box.
A hole is drilled 1,256 m into the Oak Dam West anomaly. No copper is seen. The hole is written off and the core is boxed away.
Thirty-seven years later, a major copper–gold–uranium discovery is announced about 200 m from that hole.
425.7 m at 3.04% Cu, 0.59 g/t Au, 0.34 kg/t U and 6.03 g/t Ag from 1,063 m — including 180 m at 6.07% Cu.
The rock never changed. The reading of it did. Old core is only worth re-reading if re-reading is cheap, and today it means finding trays, moving them, and laying them out again. That is the cost this removes.