 Salt mining in the Northern Calcareous Alps began in the Salzkammergut (Hallstatt) in Late Permian deposits in the Bronze Age, along with iron deposits.By the early 1990s, mining had largely ceased in Austria except for 980,000 tons of sparry magnesite extracted in 1991 and some mining of siderite, lead-zinc sulfides and antimonite.At the time, small occurrences of kaolinite, talc, graphite, mica, rock salt, gypsum and anhydrite were also mined.