In the mine „Grube Clara“, situated in the Rankachtal in Oberwolfach, the industrial minerals baryte and fluorite get stoped underground. Afterwards, they get transported for further treatment to the processing plant, which is 13 km away from the mine itself.

The mine's annual extraction of raw ore counts about 80.000 tons of baryte and 70.000 tons of fluorite. From the mined raw ore of baryte, various kinds of Mahlspat get produced, which are amongst others  used as a primary product in the automobile industry, e.g. in materials for sound absorption, in plastics, in carpets or as underbody guard. Other utilizations can be found in underground engineering, in the radiological protection and as heavyweight concrete, e.g. as balance weight for cranes,

The since the Middle Ages known barite vein with a length of 600 meters and an average thickness of 3.4 meters is already mined until a deepness of 800 meters. Parallel to the barite vein lays the fluorite vein with a lenght of 350 meters and an average thickness of 3 meters. The two veins are crossed by a huge geological disruption and another vein called „Diagonaltrum“, the geologically youngest vein. In it one can find baryte as well as fluorite, but this vein is so narrow that it can be mined only in some short parts.

The mineral deposit can be reached by two edits: The Rankach edit and the main ramp, which meanwhile reached a length of nearly 5 km.

The mining areas  are available through so-called spiral ramps and crosscuts, that meet the sublevels every 12 meters one upon the other.

All drifts get expendited by drilling and rock blasting and get protected through anchors and shotcrete (spayed concrete).

The mining of the veins occurs mostely in seven steps:

• Drilling and rock blasting from the lower level to the one above.
• Loading the blasted raw ore on special wheel loaders.
• Drilling and rock blasting for the next cut (from the upper to the lower level).
• Loading of the raw ore with remote-controlled wheel loaders.
  After the mining process itself ended, the originated hollow space  gets refilled.
• Construction of a wall made of concrete.
• Filling with secondary rocks and a binding material.
• Leveling the surface.

The mine loaders fill the raw ore into small shafts (ore passes).
From this ore passes the trucks get loaded and transport the raw ore directly to the processing plant in Wolfach. 
There they tilt it on different stockpiles.
In the conditioning process the raw ores get broken, washed, seperated by their specific weight, if necessary powdered, floatated, dried and stocked in the different product silos, from which the final products, mainly as flours, get packed in so-called big bags or get loaded directly into silo trucks.