Sandstone

"Sandstone is pretty easy to find in Minecraft. Find a desert and start digging. The upper layers of the ground will be regular sand, but below that the weight has compressed the sand into tougher sandstone blocks that hold their shape and won't fall. If all that digging sounds like hard work, then track down a desert village, well or temple instead - all of which are made of different kinds of sandstone. Or - for the very laziest amongst you - just combine four sand in a crafting grid."

- Duncan Geere

Sandstone and red sandstone are solid blocks, with sandstone commonly found in deserts and beaches.

Obtaining
Any sandstone can be mined with any pickaxe. If mined without a pickaxe, the block will drop nothing and be lost.

Natural generation
Regular sandstone will generate in deserts and beaches, compressed below a few meters of sand blocks. This protects sand from falling into natural caves and ravines. Red sandstone generates at mesa cave entrances, and will not generate beneath red sand, as orange stained clay does this instead.

Naturally-generated structures will also comprise normal sandstone if generated in a desert. The desert wells will be made of normal sandstone, NPC villages made of normal and smooth sandstone, and desert temples made of normal, smooth and chiseled sandstone. All of these will also be made partially of sandstone slabs and stairs. No naturally generated structures are made of red sandstone.

Usage
Unlike sand, sandstone is not affected by gravity, and it will not fall if placed without a supporting block underneath it.

Data values
Sandstone has the ID name, while red sandstone has the ID name of. Both types of sandstone are further defined by its block data. They also have a block state which is expected to replace the functionality of block data in a future version.

Block data

 * Block 24


 * Block 179

Block state

 * sandstone


 * red_sandstone

Trivia

 * The idea of the wither appearing on chiseled red sandstone was suggested by Reddit user ULiopleurodon.