It crops out in southern parts of Dutch and Belgian Limburg and adjacent areas in Germany.

It can be found in the subsurface of northern Belgium and southeastern Netherlands, especially in the Campine Basin and Roer Valley Graben.

[2] The Maastricht Formation consists of soft, sandy shallow marine limestone (in Limburg locally called "mergel"), in fact chalk and calcareous arenite.

Its age is between about 70 and 66 million years, which puts it in the Maastrichtian, a stage that was named after the formation.

[3][4] The type locality is at the ruins of Lichtenberg castle on Mount Saint Peter, Maastricht.