Sandstone

Kingfisher Tower, a sandstone formation in Utah, United States.

Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.

Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the planet's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be any color due to impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions.

Rock formations that are primarily composed of sandstone usually allow the percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs.

See also

• Brick
• Clay
• Raw material
• Stone
• Zeolite

References

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Sandstone, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).