The Coconino Sandstone
What is the
Coconino Sandstone?
The Coconino Sandstone, a deposit of homogeneous, mostly quartz, fine-grained sand, covers much of northern Arizona. It can be merely a meter thick at its northern edge, while extending to just over 300 meters in the south.
Read Dr. Leonard Brand’s in-depth article examining the trackways in the Coconino.
Coconino Sandstone Slabs at GRI
The Coconino slabs housed at GRI were purchased under permit by Dr. Leonard Brand from a private seller at the Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show in Tuscon, Arizona. Tap below to learn more about each one.
This animal made tracks akin to those of a scorpion, but with some significant differences.
Was this animal a reptile or amphibian? Was it walking on dry sand, or wading upstream against a current?
This slab is over a meter long and contains at least six quadrupedal trackways.
There are trackways on both the front and back of this 1.5 meter-long slab.
What type of environment would produce these geometric cracks?
What else do we know?
“Aside from the footprints, only a few worm tubes and invertebrate tracks have been reported. What did the animals who made all these tracks feed on? They had to have some food, but it is not there. If simple footprints are well preserved, so should the imprints of leaves and stems of plants, if they were present.”
- Dr. Ariel A. Roth, “Incomplete Ecosystems”
For Kids!
Check out the first issue of the Creation Detectives comic book for a fun exploration of the phenomena behind the formation of the Coconino Sandstone.
