The pit lies in the southern part of the Central Black Forest, immediately south of the 1,284-metre-high peak of Schauinsland. There are numerous lodes which descend very steeply from east to west and run largely parallel to the Upper Rhine Graben. The lodes are formed from quartz, baryte and carbonate and contain exploitable quantities of zincblende and galena. The host rocks are gneisses and migmatites. The exploitable main lodes lie within an area 1.7 km wide and 3.4 km long around the summit of the Schauinsland. Mining has been carried out at up to 900 metres deep.