Sandstones in the context of "Arches National Park"

Quartzite is a hard, non-foliated metamorphic rock that was originally pure quartz sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts, and hence quartzite is a metasandstone. Pure quartzite is usually white to grey, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink and red due to varying amounts of hematite. Other colors, such as yellow, green, blue and orange, are due to other minerals.

The term quartzite is also sometimes used for very hard but unmetamorphosed sandstones that are composed of quartz grains thoroughly cemented with additional quartz. Such sedimentary rock has come to be described as orthoquartzite to distinguish it from metamorphic quartzite, which is sometimes called metaquartzite to emphasize its metamorphic origins.

The Guiana Shield (French: Plateau des Guyanes, Bouclier guyanais; Dutch: Hoogland van Guyana, Guianaschild; Portuguese: Planalto das Guianas, Escudo das Guianas; Spanish: Escudo guayanés) is one of the three cratons of the South American Plate. It is a 1.7 billion-year-old Precambrian geological formation in northeast South America that forms a portion of the northern coast. The higher elevations on the shield are called the Guiana Highlands, which is where the table-like mountains called tepuis are found. The Guiana Highlands are also the source of some of the world's most well-known waterfalls such as Angel Falls, Kaieteur Falls, and Cuquenan Falls.

The Guiana Shield underlies Guyana (previously British Guiana), Suriname (previously Dutch Guiana), and French Guiana (or Guyane), much of southern Venezuela, as well as parts of Colombia and Brazil. The first three are called The Guianas. The rocks of the Guiana Shield consist of metasediments and metavolcanics (greenstones) overlain by sub-horizontal layers of sandstones, quartzites, shales and conglomerates intruded by sills of younger mafic intrusives such as gabbros.

The Cape Fold Belt (CFB) is a 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) long fold-and-thrust mountain belt along the western and southern coastlines of Western Cape, South Africa. The Cape Fold Belt formed during the Permian period (300 to 250 million years ago) in the late Paleozoic age, affecting the sequence of sedimentary rock layers of the siliciclastic Cape Supergroup with folding and faulted rocks, which were deposited in the Cape Basin in the southwestern corner of South Africa.

The Cape Fold Belt was once part of a larger orogenic belt with other mountain ranges that formed as part of the same tectonic event that originally extended from Argentina, across southern Africa, and into Antarctica. It included the Ventana Mountains near Bahía Blanca in Argentina, the Pensacola Mountains in East Antarctica, the Ellsworth Mountains in West Antarctica, and the Hunter–Bowen orogeny in eastern Australia. The rocks involved in this fold system are primarily sandstones and shales, with shales from the Bokkeveld Group persisting in valley floors, while the more erosion-resistant sandstones of the Peninsula Formation form the parallel ranges of the Cape Fold Mountains. The highest peak in the range is Seweweekspoortpiek, which reaches 2,325 meters.