Barite has been mined in the area around Inchydoney until 1984. The main use of barite is for oil drilling. Remember the Far West images of oil fountains rising high above wooden derricks ? Barite will prevent that. Nowadays, a mix of water and barite powder is injected in the drilling well during drilling. Due to the high density of barite, this creates a weighty column of liquid in the drilling well, that will counteract the high pressure of oil and gas when the drilling head has perforated an oil pocket.
Barite is also the infamous white soup that you ingest when you are having a gastro-intestinal x-ray : barite strongly absorbs x-rays, so a fine deposit on the intestine walls will make them appear as neat black areas in the negative x-ray image.
