The Aachen Formation (Dutch: Formatie van Aken; German: Aachen-Formation) is a geologic formation in the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium. It is part of the Chalk Group and named after the German city of Aachen.
The formation crops out in southern Belgian and Dutch Limburg and adjacent areas in Germany. The formation can also be found in the subsurface of West-Flanders, where it forms an aquifer from which drinking water is won.
The Aachen Formation consists of glauconite bearing sand. It was deposited during the Santonian and Campanian ages (85.8 - 70.6 million years ago). Its base is an unconformity on top of Carboniferous rocks of the Limburg Group, which are more than three times as old. On top of the Aachen Formation is the Vaals Formation, also part of the Chalk Group.
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“The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)