When today's continents began to separate from the supercontinent Pangea, salt separated out in shallow tropical seas 250 million years ago  as evaporation rock. Overlaid by ever thicker layers of sediment and the folding up of today's Alps by gigantic tectonic forces, salt was trapped deep in the mountain. The resulting enormous pressures of the mountain massifs on the stored salt caused it to slowly begin to rise in vertical cracks and sometimes form mighty salt domes, such as those found at the foot of the Dachstein massif in the Styrian Salzkammergut. These salt deposits were discovered and mined by our ancestors (corresponding finds go back beyond the Bronze Age to the Neolithic Age) 5000 years before Christ. This wonderful rock salt (our alpine crystal salt) was already traded across the whole continent as far as Asia. This ancient salt - Alpenkristallsalz® - is not only one of the oldest rock salt deposits, but also the oldest mined mountain salt on earth.