Grube Clara

Mineralienhalde Grube Clara


Useful Information

Location: Oberwolfach
Open: APR to JUN Fri-Sat 9-17.
School Holidays Mon-Sat 9-17, Sun, Hol 10-17.
Große Halden (Big heaps): three weekends per year.
Online registration required.
[2022]
Fee: Adults EUR 13, Children (4-14) EUR 7,50, Family (2+2) EUR 28.
Youth Groups: Adults EUR 11, Children (4-14) EUR 7.
Included Minerals: Adults 8 kg, Children 6 kg, Families 20 kg.
Additional kg EUR 1.
[2022]
Classification: MineFluorite Mine MineBaryte Mine MineFee Mining
Light: n/a
Dimension:
Guided tours: self guided
Photography: allowed
Accessibility: no
Bibliography:
Address: Mineralienhalde Grube Clara UG haftungsbeschänkt, Kirnbacher Str. 3, 77709 Wolfach, Tel: +49-07834-867772. E-mail: contact
Sachtleben Bergbau GmbH & Co. KG, Meistergasse 14, 77756 Hausach, Tel: +49-7831-96859-0, Fax: +49-7831-96859-29. E-mail: contact
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1652 first written mention.
1726 mining of silver abandoned after only one year.
1769 opening of the Grube Wenzel and Grube Friedrich-Christian.
1782 mines not rentable and closed.
1826 Bergwerksverein "Kinzigtaler" founded.
1850 start of baryte mining.
1857 mining stopped.
1898 mining reopened.
1907 cable car to the Benauer Berg built.
1967 cable car abandoned.
1978 mining of flourite vein started.
1984 anthracite ash from coal-fired power plants deposited in the mine backfills.
1996 production of silver ore concentrates.

Geology

The deposit consists of numerous baryte and fluorite veins, which also contain copper, silver and lead minerals. The seams are hosted by gneiss and Triassic sandstone. The exceptional thing, which caused the wide variety of minerals, are four different mineralization episodes, which added different elements and created new minerals. The minerals are not only a result of a certain mineralization phase, each mineralization although had the elements deposited in previous phases for recombination.

The baryte veins locally reach a width of up to 12 m, the fluorite vein is on average 3,5 m thick.

Description

In the Grube Clara (Clara mine) the minerals barite and fluorite are mined. It is located at Oberwolfach in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). The mine is a working mine, mined continually for over 100 years, and is not open to the public. So this is not a normal show mine, the site is actually the overburden heap of the mine. This is easy to understand if you know, that the Grube Clara is world-famous for its wide variety of more than 350 different minerals which can be found here. So the actual sight is not the mine, it is the Mineralienhalde Grube Clara (Mineral Heap Grube Clara), which are said to be the only overburden mineral heap of Europe.

The overburden heaps or slag heaps of the mine were open to the public for many years. Because of new laws concerning security regulations of overburden heaps, the site was in danger to be closed in 2007. As a result the Mineralienhalde Grube Clara was founded as an autonomous company, which allows collectors to search the overburden. Collectors pay a daily fee and have a certain amount of rocks included, additional rocks have to be paid by weight. The collecting is done on a separate ground, the material is replaced daily with fresh overburden from the mine. Several times a year, normally three weekends during late Summer, it is possible to collect on the so-called Große Halden (Big Heaps), the original overburden heaps of the mine.