Sand­stone is a clas­tic cement­ed sed­i­men­ta­ry rock formed as a result of the cemen­ta­tion of sand (grain size 0.1–1 mm). Clay and lime­stone cement are more com­mon, while iron oxides, opal, and chal­cedony are less com­mon. Sand­stone con­sists main­ly of min­er­al frag­ments, among which quartz dom­i­nates (up to 90–95%). In small­er quan­ti­ties, there are feldspars, micas (mus­covite, biotite), clay min­er­als, tour­ma­line, and zir­con.

Sand­stones are formed as a result of dia­ge­n­e­sis — the process­es of com­paction and cemen­ta­tion of sandy sed­i­ments. The source of clas­tic mate­r­i­al is intru­sive, meta­mor­phic, or vol­canogenic rocks destroyed by phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal weath­er­ing. The mech­a­nism of trans­port of sand (by water, wind, or glac­i­er) deter­mines the degree of sort­ing, round­ing of grains, and min­er­alog­i­cal matu­ri­ty of the sed­i­ment. Dur­ing meta­mor­phism, it is trans­formed into quartzite.

Sand­stone is includ­ed in the list of min­er­als of nation­al impor­tance approved by Res­o­lu­tion of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters of Ukraine No. 827 of Decem­ber 12, 1994, as a raw mate­r­i­al for refrac­to­ries, raw mate­r­i­al for fac­ing mate­ri­als (dec­o­ra­tive stones), and raw mate­r­i­al for rub­ble stone.

The rock is com­posed main­ly of quartz, a chem­i­cal­ly sta­ble and wear-resis­tant min­er­al, which deter­mines the high hard­ness and dura­bil­i­ty of the rock. Addi­tion­al com­po­nents (feldspar, glau­conite, rock frag­ments, mica) reduce homo­gene­ity and can affect strength and weath­er­ing resis­tance.

The struc­ture of sand­stones is most­ly frag­men­tal (sandy), some­times porous. The tex­ture is mas­sive, lay­ered, or lumpy.

Mechan­i­cal prop­er­ties depend heav­i­ly on the degree of cemen­ta­tion. Weak­ly cement­ed rocks are eas­i­ly destroyed, while dense quartz sand­stones are very strong (com­pres­sive strength up to 150 MPa).

Sand­stones are divid­ed into coarse-grained (1–0.5 mm), medi­um-grained (0.5–0.25 mm), and fine-grained (0.1–0.05 mm). In terms of com­po­si­tion, there are quartz, quartz-feldspar, quartz-glau­conite, clayey, cal­care­ous, and gyp­sum vari­eties.

The type of cement is also impor­tant: sand­stones can be sil­i­cate (the strongest), car­bon­ate (with cal­cite or dolomite cement), clayey (loose, reduced strength) or fer­rug­i­nous cement (enriched with iron oxides, which give it a red­dish or brown­ish tint).

Col­or is also a clas­si­fi­ca­tion fea­ture: the most com­mon are gray, yel­low­ish-gray, and white rocks; red, brown, or green­ish shades are less com­mon, caused by the pres­ence of iron oxides or glau­conite.

Types of sand­stone are deter­mined pri­mar­i­ly by their min­er­alog­i­cal com­po­si­tion, cement type, and struc­tur­al char­ac­ter­is­tics.

• Quartz sand­stone — con­sists main­ly of quartz (over 90%). It is a strong, weath­er-resis­tant rock, usu­al­ly light in col­or.
• Glau­conite sand­stone — con­tains the green min­er­al glau­conite, indi­cat­ing the marine ori­gin of the deposits.
• Het­ero­ge­neous sand­stone, polymic­tic sand­stone, poly­genic sand­stone — sand­stone that is het­ero­ge­neous in com­po­si­tion, com­posed of frag­men­tary grains of var­i­ous rocks: igneous, sed­i­men­ta­ry, meta­mor­phic, and var­i­ous min­er­als.
• Gyp­sum sand­stone — sand­stone con­sist­ing main­ly of frag­ments of gyp­sum weak­ly cement­ed with clayey mate­r­i­al.
• Obol sand­stone is sand­stone that con­tains a large num­ber of Obol­i­dae shell remains.
• Oligomict sand­stone — sand­stone con­sist­ing main­ly of frag­ments of two min­er­als that give it its name, for exam­ple, quartz-feldspar, glau­conite-quartz, etc.
• Tuffa­ceous sand­stone — sand­stone con­tain­ing 50–90% pyro­clas­tic mate­r­i­al.

Sand­stones are wide­ly used due to their phys­i­cal and mechan­i­cal prop­er­ties, in par­tic­u­lar their strength, resis­tance to weath­er­ing, poros­i­ty, and dec­o­ra­tive qual­i­ties.

In con­struc­tion, they are used as a base or fac­ing mate­r­i­al for build­ing walls, foun­da­tions, facade dec­o­ra­tion, and paving side­walks. Due to its nat­ur­al vari­ety of col­ors and ease of pro­cess­ing, sand­stone is also used in dec­o­ra­tive archi­tec­ture for the man­u­fac­ture of columns, slabs, stairs, and sculp­tur­al ele­ments.

In road con­struc­tion, crushed sand­stone is used as aggre­gate for road bases, rail­way bal­last, and drainage sys­tems. Some dense, fine-grained vari­eties are used as abra­sive mate­r­i­al for the man­u­fac­ture of grind­ing wheels and whet­stones.

Due to their high poros­i­ty and per­me­abil­i­ty, sand­stones are also impor­tant reser­voirs of ground­wa­ter, oil, and nat­ur­al gas, and are there­fore wide­ly used in hydro­ge­ol­o­gy and the oil and gas indus­try.

In some cas­es, sand­stone is used as a raw mate­r­i­al for the pro­duc­tion of glass, cement, sil­i­cate bricks, and oth­er build­ing mate­ri­als.

The largest sand­stone resources in Ukraine are con­cen­trat­ed in regions with a thick sed­i­men­ta­ry cov­er, in par­tic­u­lar, Zakarpat­tia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Rivne, Zhy­to­myr, Donet­sk, Luhan­sk, Dnipropetro­vsk, Zapor­izhzhia and Ode­sa regions. Geo­log­i­cal­ly, a sig­nif­i­cant part of the deposits is asso­ci­at­ed with Pale­o­zoic, Meso­zoic, and Ceno­zoic sed­i­ments. At the begin­ning of the 21st cen­tu­ry, sand­stone min­ing is most preva­lent in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, and Lviv regions.

The most famous is sand­stone from near Tere­bovlia in the Ternopil region. Accord­ing to data from the last cen­tu­ry, slabs of Tere­bovlia sand­stone were export­ed to the East and reached as far as Chi­na. In the sec­ond half of the 19th cen­tu­ry, slabs of Tere­bovlia sand­stone were used to pave the streets of Lviv.

Sand­stone is not only a build­ing mate­r­i­al, but also a wit­ness to the his­to­ry of the Earth, frozen in the col­ors and tex­tures of time. It is wide­ly used in con­struc­tion and archi­tec­ture — where strength, dura­bil­i­ty, and reli­a­bil­i­ty are required.