Sandstone

Sandstone is a solid block. It is found naturally at the bottom of sand stacks, and can also be crafted from sand.

Chiseled sandstone is a decorative form of sandstone with a Creeper face and various small carvings on it. They are found in desert temples or wells.

Smooth sandstone is a decorative form of sandstone with a smoother texture. Like chiseled sandstone, it is found in a desert temple or a desert well, but it is also found in NPC villages in deserts.

Red sandstone is an sandstone variant that will only appear in the mesa biome. It is currently unknown if it will be craftable, although if it is, it will likely involve red sand.

Obtaining
Sandstone normally appears at the lowest levels of sandy areas (deserts, beachs, etc.) and supports the sand above it, but if a lake is generated in that same volume, it may carve away the sandstone and result in volumes of unsupported sand which will collapse if disturbed. The sandstone layer in sandy biomes forms "stalactites" on the bottom, which penetrate the stone below or hang down into caves. If the player spawns in a desert in a survival mode game, the sand to craft sandstone will be readily obtainable for the player to build a shelter with.

Placed sandstone can be harvested with any pickaxe. Breaking a sandstone block by hand destroys the block but drops nothing for the player to pick up; it takes slightly longer to mine it with bare hands than with a wooden pickaxe.

Usage and Behavior
Unlike sand, sandstone is not affected by gravity, and it will not fall if placed without a supporting block underneath it. Sandstone's appearance makes it highly suitable for desert-themed architecture.

Sandstone's blast resistance is similar to sand or grass block, and is much less than that of wood or stone.

However, sandstone can be crafted into slabs, which can then be stacked to fill a block, and these will be much more durable. Because all stone slabs are currently represented in the game by using different data values for a single block type, sandstone slabs behave like other stone slabs. This means they take longer to mine and have much greater blast resistance than the sandstone blocks from which they were made.

Trivia

 * Sandstone is among the weakest blocks that cannot be harvested by hand, along with snow blocks and Netherrack.
 * If you look carefully at a smooth sandstone you can notice the number "2" on it, formed accidentally by the variation of its pixels' colors.
 * As mentioned above, since Slabs are treated as stone in terms of blast resistance, converting a stack of 63 Sandstone blocks into 126 Sandstone Slabs and then building using the slabs in pairs effectively provides the same appearance as using Sandstone blocks but with 7.5 times as much blast resistance.
 * Sandstone appears grey on a Map, making it look like Stone.
 * Since generated caves do not remove sandstone stalactites, it's not uncommon to find a ravine in a desert with a patchy layer of sandstone covering it 2-4 blocks below ground level.
 * Smooth sandstone can be used to craft itself.
 * However, this was reported as a bug and fixed in snapshot 14w29a.
 * It can also be used to mix and match; if you want to create some more smooth sandstone but only have 3 normal sandstone, pop a smooth one in there and the job is done.
 * In Pocket Edition, Sandstone Stairs are called “Sand Stone Stairs”.
 * Although there is red sand in the mesa biome, there is no red sandstone, so orange stained clay is used instead. Red Sandstone will be added in 1.8.