Pass mousewheel event through fixed content

A much, MUCH simpler, but much less widely supported, answer is the following:

#fixed{ pointer-events:none; }

jsFiddle
Doesn't work in IE at all though unfortunately! But you could use modernizr or somesuch to detect whether it was supported and use the jQuery as a stop-gap where it isn't.

Courtesy of Mr. Dominic Stubbs

I had this problem and this works for me (using jquery):

$(document).ready( function (){
    $('#fixed').on('mousewheel',function(event) {
        var scroll = $('#container').scrollTop();
        $('#container').scrollTop(scroll - event.originalEvent.wheelDeltaY);
        return true;
    });
});

Works on Safari and Chrome: http://jsfiddle.net/5bwWe/36/

I think this does what you're asking for!

$('#fixed').bind('mousewheel', function(e){
     var scrollTo= (e.wheelDelta*-1) + $('#container').scrollTop();
    $("#container").scrollTop(scrollTo);
});

EDIT: Updated the jsFiddle link to one that actually works
DOUBLE EDIT: Best to dispense with the .animate() on further testing...
jsFiddle Example

TRIPLE EDIT: Much less pretty (and will probably be horribly slow with a lot of elements on the page), but this works and I owe a lot to this stackoverflow answer.

$('#fixed').bind('mousewheel', function(e) {


var potentialScrollElements = findIntersectors($('#fixed'), $('*:not(#fixed,body,html)'));
$.each(potentialScrollElements, function(index, Element) {
    var hasVerticalScrollbar = $(Element)[0].scrollHeight > $(Element)[0].clientHeight;
    if (hasVerticalScrollbar) {
        var scrollTo = (e.wheelDelta * -1) + $(Element).scrollTop();
        $(Element).scrollTop(scrollTo);
    }
});
});


function findIntersectors(targetSelector, intersectorsSelector) {
var intersectors = [];

var $target = $(targetSelector);
var tAxis = $target.offset();
var t_x = [tAxis.left, tAxis.left + $target.outerWidth()];
var t_y = [tAxis.top, tAxis.top + $target.outerHeight()];

$(intersectorsSelector).each(function() {
    var $this = $(this);
    var thisPos = $this.offset();
    var i_x = [thisPos.left, thisPos.left + $this.outerWidth()]
    var i_y = [thisPos.top, thisPos.top + $this.outerHeight()];

    if (t_x[0] < i_x[1] && t_x[1] > i_x[0] && t_y[0] < i_y[1] && t_y[1] > i_y[0]) {
        intersectors.push($this);
    }

});
return intersectors;

}