Mittersill is the largest scheelite deposit in Europe, having in 2010 estimated reserves of 6.1 million tonnes of ore grading 0.5% pure tungsten.

[4][2][5] The deposit was discovered in 1967, with production starting in an open pit mine in the eastern field in 1976.

[6] The Mittersill deposit hosted in Early Palaeozoic metamorphic rocks, mainly in metabasites of the central Tauern Window, which were intruded by numerous granites during the Variscan orogeny (~340–290 Ma) and subsequently metamorphosed during the Alpine orogeny (~30 Ma).

[2] Scheelite is accompanied by pyrrhotite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, molybdenite, apatite and beryl; less common are minerals of the tungstenite‐molybdenite solid solution, marcasite, galena, arsenopyrite, sphalerite, pentlandite, magnetite and hematite.

Whereas in the early days, mainly on the basis of its partly stratiform morphology, the deposit was interpreted as syngenetic and caused by submarine exhalative activity related to Early Paleozoic basaltic rocks,[7][8] recent authors have accumulated evidences favoring an epigenetic ore formation by hydrothermal fluids derived from a Late Paleozoic granite.