LEAD, S.D. (AP) - Scientists have been given the Department of Energy's approval to move forward with plans for a $50 million building that will eventually house a neutrino detector in the western South Dakota town of Lead.

It's another in a growing list of scientific experiments to be housed in the once-booming gold mine town. Like the others, officials hope the new neutrino experiment will eventually be housed nearly a mile underground inside the shuttered Homestake Gold Mine.

The Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment is expected to be an $870 million, multi-phase project.

The Black Hills Pioneer reports (http://bit.ly/UnOdbh ) that in the experiment, scientists will shoot a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab, near Chicago, to Kirk Canyon in Lead, where a detector will help scientists study the properties of the subatomic particles.

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