The Aztec Sandstone is made up of two units. The lower resistant sandstone unit (100 metres (330 ft) thick) is tan to off-white in outcrops but pinkish in fresh exposures. Cross-bedded lenses can easily be observed. Frosted and pitted quartz grains well-cemented by silica are described by Evans in 1958 and 1971. The upper and less resistant unit (200m thick) consists of alternating white quartz arenites and red to brown silty sands.[6]
Vertebrate paleofauna
The formation has provided the following ichnofossils attributed to vertebrates:[4]
Bonde, J. W.; Varricchio, D. J.; Jackson, F. D.; Loope, D. B.; Shirk, A. M. (2008). E. M. Duebendorfer; E. I. Smith (eds.). Dinosaurs and dunes! Sedimentology and paleontology of the Mesozoic in the Valley of Fire State Park. Vol. 11. pp. 249–262. doi:10.1130/2008.FLD011(11). ISBN978-0-81-375611-0. WikidataQ95597606. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
Lockley, M.; Harris, J.D.; and Mitchell, L. 2008. "A global overview of pterosaur ichnology: tracksite distribution in space and time." Zitteliana. B28. p. 187-198. ISSN1612-4138.
Hilton, Richard P. 2003. Dinosaurs and Other Mesozoic Reptiles of California. Berkeley: University of California Press. 318 pp.
Further reading
R. E. Reynolds. 1986. California trackways from the Lower Jurassic Aztec Sandstone. In D. D. Gillette (ed.), First International Symposium on Dinosaur Tracks and Traces. Abstracts with Program 24