page_title: Sandstone
section_title: Types of sandstone
hierarchical_section_title: Sandstone / Types of sandstone
caption_attribution_description: English: Cross-bedding and scour in the Logan Formation (Mississippian) of Jackson County, Ohio.
context_page_description: Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized mineral particles or rock fragments or organic material. They make up about 20 to 25 percent of all sedimentary rocks.
  Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the Earth's surface, as seen in the Goldich dissolution series. 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. Fine-grained aquifers, such as sandstones, are better able to filter out pollutants from the surface than are rocks with cracks and crevices, such as limestone or other rocks fractured by seismic activity.
context_section_description: All sandstones are composed of the same general minerals. These minerals make up the framework components of the sandstones. Such components are quartz, feldspars, and lithic fragments. Matrix may also be present in the interstitial spaces between the framework grains. Below is a list of several major groups of sandstones. These groups are divided based on mineralogy and texture. Even though sandstones have very simple compositions which are based on framework grains, geologists have not been able to agree on a specific, right way, to classify sandstones. Sandstone classifications are typically done by point-counting a thin section using a method like the Gazzi-Dickinson Method. The composition of a sandstone can have important information regarding the genesis of the sediment when used with a triangular Quartz, Feldspar, Lithic fragment (QFL diagrams). Many geologists, however, do not agree on how to separate the triangle parts into the single components so that the framework grains can be plotted. Therefore, there have been many published ways to classify sandstones, all of which are similar in their general format.
  Visual aids are diagrams that allow geologists to interpret different characteristics about a sandstone. The following QFL chart and the sandstone provenance model correspond with each other therefore, when the QFL chart is plotted those points can then be plotted on the sandstone provenance model. The stage of textural maturity chart illustrates the different stages that a sandstone goes through.
  A QFL chart is a representation of the framework grains and matrix that is present in a sandstone. This chart is similar to those used in igneous petrology. When plotted correctly, this model of analysis creates for a meaningful quantitative classification of sandstones.
  A sandstone provenance chart allows geologists to visually interpret the different types of places from which sandstones can originate.
  A stage of textural maturity is a chart that shows the different stages of sandstones. This chart shows the difference between immature, submature, mature, and supermature sandstones. As the sandstone becomes more mature, grains become more rounded, and there is less clay in the matrix of the rock.
caption: Cross-bedding and scour in sandstone of the Logan Formation (Lower Carboniferous) of Jackson County, Ohio
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