The formation has provided numerous fossils of corals, sponges, bivalves, gastropods and other marine groups indicative of a shallow marine carbonate platform environment deposited at the northern end of the Tethys Ocean.

Alternative names for the whole formation or parts of it in stratigraphical (vertical) or facies (lateral) sense are: The Swiss stratigraphical lexicon uses Wetterstein Formation as "informal, but used name" with the following historical variants:[6] Its subunits include: The Wetterstein Formation, with a total thickness of up to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft),[6] is a major regional stratigraphic unit of the Northern Limestone Alps and Western Carpathians in Central Europe, spanning across four countries from southwestern Bavaria to northwestern Slovakia.

The formation crops out to the north of the Hohe Tauern window and is part of the Austroalpine nappes.

The Kopaonik Formation in its eponymous mountain range in Serbia is considered a distal, more deep water equivalent of the Wetterstein platform sediments.

[7] Dolomitization of the Wetterstein Carbonate Platform is a widespread phenomenon, especially in the Tirolic units of the Northern Calcareous Alps.