The Coconino Sandstone is a Permian age geologic formation composed of light-colored quartz arenite of eolian origin. It erodes to form conspicuous, sheer cliffs in the upper walls of Grand Canyon, as part of the Mogollon Rim to the south and east, and in many other parts of the Colorado Plateau region. The Coconino Sandstone is well known for its fossil trackways of terrestrial invertebrates and vertebrates and large-scale cross-stratification.

Eastward of a north–south line from Monument Creek to Fossil Creek, the Coconino Sandstone overlies and interfingers with and grades into the Schnebly Hill Formation, which is equivalent in part to the De Chelly Sandstone in Utah. In this area, it underlies the Kaibab Limestone. Further eastward, the Coconino Sandstone likely correlates with and is contemporaneous with the Glorieta Sandstone of New Mexico. Westward of this line, the upper part of Coconino Sandstone is known as the White Rim Sandstone in Utah and the Cave Springs Member in Arizona. It interfingers and merges westward into the Toroweap Formation. The remaining lower part of the Coconino Formation is known as the Harding Point Member and underlies the Toroweap Formation and uncomfortably overlies the Hermit Formation. Between the Toroweap and Hermit formations, the Harding Point Member thins westward until it disappears.

In 1910, Darton named and mapped the Coconino sandstone as a member of the now abandoned Aubrey group for its widespread distribution in the Coconino Plateau. He named the Coconino sandstone for the cross-bedded gray to white sandstones that form a conspicuous sheer cliff in walls of Grand Canyon and underlies entire Coconino Plateau and the extensive Colorado Plateau north of the Grand Canyon. As defined at that time, it lay between the overlying Kaibab (Aubre) limestone and the underlying Supai formation. The Kaibab limestone was later divided onto the Kaibab Limestone and Toroweap Formation and the Supai formation was later subdivided into the Hermit Formation and Supai Group. Later, the Coconino Sandstone was recognized and mapped in the San Rafael Swell in the Emery County, Utah, region.

In 1982, Hamilton recognized the fine-grained vitreous quartzites exposed in the Salton basin as the metamorphosed equivalent of Coconino Sandstone in the Big Maria Mountains of southeast California. Because of the change in lithology, this fine-grained quartzite was named and mapped as the Coconino Quartzite. Located in the Big Maria Mountains exposures, the Coconino Quartzite lies between the Hermit Schist and Kaibab Marble.

The Coconino Sandstone consists predominately of well-sorted, uniformly fine grained 0.0045–0.98 in (0.11–24.89 mm), nearly pure quartz sand grains held together by siliceous cement. It contains a few scattered potassium feldspar grains and traces of heavy minerals. Many of the sand grains are frosted or pitted and nearly all of them are rounded to subangular. Iron oxide staining and cements are commonly absent, which is reflected in its pale, white to buff color. However, locally, the Coconino Sandstone is iron-stained and, as a result, is either a brownish color, as in Marble Canyon, or bright red, as near Flagstaff, Arizona.

The Coconino Sandstone exhibits a number of primary sedimentary structures. The most conspicuous of these is ubiquitous large-scale, wedge-planar, cross-stratification. It consists of long sweeping layers that often are 30–40 ft (9.1–12.2 m) long and as much as long as 80 ft (24 m). The cross-stratification dip mostly at 25°- 30° with few at a maximum of about 34°. Their dip is generally unimodal southward, but with a spread of readings ranging between southwest and southeast. Truncated by overlying beds, they form large, irregular wedges. In addition to the wedge-planar, cross-stratification, the Coconino Sandstone exhibits rare, large-scale, low-angle, less than 15°, cross-stratification that dip in the opposite direction. They are only found in limited numbers in a few localities within exposures of this sandstone. The basal 3–6 ft (0.91–1.83 m) of the Coconino Sandstone at many outcrops exhibits horizontal laminae. A distinctive characteristic of this sandstone is that the cross-stratification readily splits into thin plates.

Although ripple marks are not abundant within the Coconino Sandstone, they are distinctive and locally numerous. They consist typically of low, wide, and asymmetrical ripples with ripple indexes, the ratio of wavelength to amplitude, greater than 17 with most considerably higher. Typically, the ripple crests and troughs lie parallel to the direction of dip of the foreset slopes. The ripple crests are rounded and generally consist of coarser sand grains on or about their crests. The crests and troughs of these ripple are straight and parallel and, where exposed, exhibit little change in direction for distances of 3 ft (0.91 m) or more. They are less common in the Coconino Sandstone than in modern sand dunes because of the general lack of preservation of both the windward-side deposits of sand dunes and of ripple marks formed in dry sand without special circumstances.

On the bedding planes of Coconino Sandstone, the small, crater-like pits of raindrop impressions are recognized at several outcrops. They are oriented in respect to the sloping surface of laminations such that these circular pits tend to face upward, or vertically, with a raised downslope rim. Rain pits have been reproduced in the laboratory on sloping surfaces of fine dry sand to provide positive evidence of subaerial formation by brief rain showers.