Stones of Canada, Episode:2

Sandstones

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock mostly composed of more or less rounded quartz grains, 1/16 mm to 2 mm in diameter, cemented by iron oxides, clay, calcite, or silica. Sandstone is whitish, light grey, or variously colored depending on the pigments in the binder.
Since the mid-1960s, most of the sandstone produced for construction has been extracted from the Havelock area of the Montérégie Region and the Mirabel area of the Laurentides region. In Québec, red, orange, grey, yellow, and green sandstone is quarried.

Red, pink, and orange sandstone

Red, pink, and orange sandstone occur in Silurian sedimentary rocks of the Appalachian Orogen (Brisebois and Brun, 1994). The rocks are quarried in the Saint-Mathieu area of the Bas-Saint-Laurent region. They consist of sandstone or occasionally siltstone from the Robitaille Formation. 

(Appalachian Orogen Mountain)

Sandstone is mainly used to produce flagstones and paving stones, stones for fireplaces, house facings, and retaining walls. More rarely, blocks are extracted to produce slabs.

(Red Sandstone - on Canada’s Prince Edward Island)

White, brown, and yellow sandstone

The sandstones occur in the sedimentary formations of the St. Lawrence Platform, The sandstones from the St. Lawrence Platform are extracted in the Havelock and Hemming ford areas of the Montérégie Region and the Mirabel area of the Laurentides region. It consists of light grey-brown or greyish white quartz arenite belonging to the Cairn side Formation (Potsdam Group) and dolomitic sandstone and quartzite dolomite belonging to the Theresa Formation, from which flagstones and rough or cut Cobblestones is produced for residential construction.

(Cobblestones - Canadian Sandstone)

Green Sandstone

Green sandstone is extracted in the Saint-Ferdinand area of the Centre-du-Québec region. It consists of green, fine-grained quartz arenite belonging to the Oak Hill Group. The stone is used to produce flagstones and cobblestones.