 | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Location | Oberwolfach |
| History | |
| Opened | 1898 |
| Active | Grube Clara |
| Closed | open |
| Owner | |
| Company | Sachtleben Bergbau GmbH und Co. KG |
The Clara Pit (German : Grube Clara) or Clara Mine is a working mine in Oberwolfach in the Black Forest in Germany in which the industrial minerals, baryte and fluorspar are mined.
The pit is well known because, to date, over 375 different minerals have been found here (as at November 2004), including several that are very rare. The portal of the mine is located in the upper part of the Rankach valley. The processing plant is near Wolfach-Kirnbach in the Kinzig valley. Since 1898, the Clara Pit has mined over 3 million tonnes of baryte and over 2 million tonnes of fluorspar. Baryte is used inter alia in sound attenuation, radiation protection and the deep mining industry. Fluorspar or fluorite is used in the metal industry as a plasticiser (e.g. in welding electrodes) in the glass and ceramics industry and in the chemical industry for the production of hydrofluoric acid.
The pit, which is operated by the firm of Sachtleben Bergbau is the last active mine of the many that were once worked in the Black Forest.
Its most common minerals are azurite, baryte, chrysocolla, claraite, cornwallite, fluorite, goethite, clinoclase, copper, malachite, pyrite, pyromorphite, mimetite, stolzite, silver und scorodite.
On the mineral tailings site of the Clara Pit in Wolfach-Kirnbach the various minerals may be looked for in separate raw mineral ore spoil heaps. [1]
In the Oberwolfach Mining and Mineral Museum in the village of Kirche over 200 minerals from the pit are displayed.
The fissures in the mine are part of the Friedrich Christian Herrensegen Fault Zone in the Black Forest Gneiss Complex.
The Clara Pit has given its name to the mineral, claraite and is also the type locality for the following minerals: agardite-(Ce), [2] arsenbrackebuschite, [3] arsenocrandallite, [4] arsenogorceixite, [5] arsenogoyazite, [6] bariopharmacosiderite, [7] benauite, [8] bismutostibiconite, [9] claraite, [10] cualstibite, [11] phosphofibrite, [12] phyllotungstite, [13] rankachite, [14] rhabdophane-(Ce), [15] tungstibite, [16] uranotungstite. [17]
The Black Forest is a large forested mountain range in south-west Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, bounded by the Rhine valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is the source of the Danube and Neckar rivers.
Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon.
Witherite is a barium carbonate mineral, BaCO3, in the aragonite group. Witherite crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and virtually always is twinned. The mineral is colorless, milky-white, grey, pale-yellow, green, to pale-brown. The specific gravity is 4.3, which is high for a translucent mineral. It fluoresces light blue under both long- and short-wave UV light, and is phosphorescent under short-wave UV light.
Weardale is a dale, or valley, on the east side of the Pennines in County Durham, England. Large parts of Weardale fall within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – the second-largest AONB in England and Wales. The upper dale is surrounded by high fells and heather grouse moors. The River Wear flows through Weardale before reaching Bishop Auckland and then Durham, meeting the sea at Sunderland.
Wolfach is a town in the Black Forest and part of the Ortenaukreis in Baden-Württemberg (Germany). It is a well-known spa town in Germany.
The Mining Association of the United Kingdom is a trade association for all kinds of mining undertaken by UK companies.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to mining:
Tajikistan has rich deposits of gold, silver, and antimony. The largest silver deposits are in Sughd Province, where Tajikistan's largest gold mining operation also is located. Russia's Norilsk nickel company has explored a large new silver deposit at Bolshoy Kanimansur. More than 400 mineral deposits of some 70 different minerals have been discovered in Tajikistan, including strontium, tungsten, molybdenum, bismuth, salt, lead, zinc, fluorspar, and mercury. These minerals have been found suitable for mining. Uranium, an important mineral in the Soviet era, remains in some quantity but is no longer extracted. The Tajikistan Aluminium Company (TALCO), an aluminium smelter, is the country's only large-scale production enterprise in the mining sector. Tajikistan hosts the annual Mining World Tajikistan, an international exhibition on mining in Dushanbe.
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The Kenya Fluorspar Company is a privately held mining company in Kenya. It is located in Kimwarer, a village in the southern part of the Kerio Valley in Elgeyo-Marakwet County.
The Samson Pit or Samson Mine is an historic silver mine in Sankt Andreasberg in the Upper Harz region of central Germany.
Castle Dome, or Castle Dome Peak is a prominent butte and high point of the Castle Dome Mountains northeast of Yuma, Arizona, in the northwestern Sonoran Desert.
The Ljubija mine is a large open pit mine located in Prijedor, in the western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Republika Srpska, 48 km South - East of Banja Luka and 250 km South - East of the capital, Sarajevo. Ljubija represents the largest iron ore reserves in Bosnia and Herzegovina having estimated reserves of 442 million tonnes of ore. The mine produces around 2,900,000 tonnes of iron ore/year. Iron ore is mined together with zinc, lead, baryte and fluorite.
Fowey Consols mine is a group of mines in the St Blazey district of Cornwall. They were owned by wealthy Cornishman, Joseph Treffry. The mines were worked by 6 steam engines and 17 waterwheels. The mines were linked to the port at Par by a canal. It was one of the deepest, richest and most important copper mines in Cornwall.
The Glasebach Pit is a mining museum and former pit in the Harz fluorspar mining area near Straßberg in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is run by the East Harz Mining Society. The pit was founded under the name of Vertrau auf Gott.
Rampgill mine is a disused lead mine at Nenthead, Alston Moor, Cumbria, England UK Grid Reference: NY78184351
The Silberberg, at 1,358.2 m above sea level (NHN), is the most prominent summit in the mountain group around the Herzogenhorn in the Black Forest in the southwest German state of Baden-Württemberg. It lies about 4 kilometres east of the town of Todtnau.
The Finstergrund Pit near Wieden in the Black Forest in Germany is an abandoned medieval silver and lead mine that was also used in the modern era to extract fluorite and baryte. Since 1982 it has been used as a visitor mine.
MiMa is a museum of mineralogy and mathematics in Oberwolfach, in the central Black Forest in southern Germany. The museum was opened on 30 January 2010 on the site of the mineral museum after a two-year conversion and expansion phase. It is operated jointly by the municipality of Oberwolfach, the Oberwolfach Society of the Friends of Minerals and Mining and the Mathematics Research Institute, Oberwolfach.
The Wenzel Pit is a former silver mine in the Zinken Frohnbach in Oberwolfach in the Black Forest in southern Germany. The pit had its heyday in the Napoleonic era, but has been a show mine since 2001.
