For full coverage of the search, including video footage, see Saturday's Bendigo Advertiser newspaper and website.

THE search for missing Maryborough boy Terry Floyd will continue indefinitely.

His brother Daryl Floyd recommenced the search this week at a disused mine shaft near Avoca.

Terry, 12, disappeared more than 36 years ago.

His family believes he was killed and dumped in the mine shaft in 1975.

Mr Floyd received a $25,000 grant in December and the funds have enabled the search to recommence after a nine-month break.

"Every third week we will be working for eight to 10 days doing what we are doing and (that's) removing the debris from the shaft," he said.

"We have got a couple of margarine containers... dating November and October 1981 as the expiry dates.

"We are estimating we are in the late 1980 (or) early 1981.

"From other information that (we have) obtained, a butcher used to use this particular shaft for dumping cow skulls and bones down from the local abattoir and he stopped doing that in 1979.

"We haven't yet pulled one of those cow skulls from the shaft. Once we start doing that we will know we are back at the 1979 mark and then we've got four years to work back through to get to the 1975 era."

Two miners work underground for eight hours a day searching for Terry.

Mr Floyd works above the mine and sorts through the buckets of debris that emerge from below.

Victoria Police contributed $50,000 to search the mine shaft for Terry's body in November 2010.

Initial estimates suggested the mine was 20 to 30 metres deep.

Miners have excavated a 40-metre vertical shaft.

Currently they are excavating the remainder of the shaft which declines on an angle.

Mr Floyd hopes to continue to raise money to enable his search despite being unsure how long the process will take.

He said he would continue to search until he found his brother.