Barite was mined in the Dreislar district of Medebach until the recent past. The deposit is located in approximately 350 million years old Lower Carboniferous graywackes and clay shales of the Rhenish Slate Mountains. However, the barite mineralization itself is significantly younger: during the folding of the Alps in the Tertiary (65-1.7 million years before today), the old slate mountains were dissected by stretching and fracturing fractures in which hot solutions rose from which the barite mineralized.
The Museum of Barite is located next to the church of Dreislar.
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For more info, visit the museum's homepage.