[2] It is the lowest member of the Beattie Limestone formation and commonly outcrops within the deep valleys and on top of the scenic residual ridges of the Flint Hills.

The upper part of the member in particular is recognizable for being almost entirely made up of the small wheat-grain shaped foraminifera Fusulinida, with few other animal remains.

A regionally famous construction material, Cottonwood Limestone is yellowish, buff, to nearly white in color, even-textured, durable, and very suitable for cutting into dimensional stone for masonry.

[5] As such, the lithologic characteristics of Cottonwood Limestone has made it one of the best building stones in the state and many past quarries, large and small, may be found on nearly every hill capped by this resource.

Its use in a building within its region can often be recognized by the use of large cut blocks, near-white or buff color, and showing abundant fossils or molds of “wheat-grain” shaped fusulinids coupled with general absence of spalling, splotchy black coloring from mold that find portions of the stone particularly favorable, and sculptured or protruding rough faces.

[11][21] In many places, springs or shallow wells from the Cottonwood provide large supplies of water for domestic home and farm use.

The member made an impact on gas production in the region in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the discovery of additional reserves in previously established and even abandoned fields.

From there, the line of outcrop is a tortuous one extending several miles north and west along the Kansas and Big Blue rivers and their tributaries.

An outstanding example of uniformity of thickness over considerable areas, the outcrop of the Cottonwood Limestone over a distance of 150 miles from Nebraska to central Kansas is nowhere less than 5.5 nor more than 6.5 feet.

This boundary between the upper and lower Cottonwood is evidenced by a sharp textural contrast, porosity difference, and changes in the opaque mineral content.

[31] In Greenwood County, Kansas, the unit appears as light-gray limestone crowded with horizontal thin leaves of platy algae, attaining a maximum observed thickness of 8 feet.

[30] The Cottonwood in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma is an interbedded limestone and calcareous shale with a very diverse, abundant, and well-preserved fossil fauna, especially brachiopods, mollusks, and ammodiscid foraminifera (shelly facies).