Rocksday

Sandstone

Sand grains — mostly quartz — cemented together. Many sandstones preserve ancient beaches, rivers or desert dunes.

Sandstone specimen
Photo: Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

How to identify sandstone

  • Gritty, like sandpaper.
  • Individual sand grains visible with a lens.
  • Grains rub off when scraped.
  • Often layered or cross-bedded.

Often confused with

Where it's found

  • Zion and Arches, Utah
  • Petra, Jordan
  • Uluru, Australia
  • Sedona, Arizona

Uses

Building stone (New York's brownstones) and grindstones.

Rock tumbling

Not suitable for tumbling. Usually crumbles back into sand.

Did you know?

The sweeping lines in Zion's Navajo Sandstone are sand dunes frozen around 190 million years ago.

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