File:Quartzite (roadcut west of Vandola, Virginia, USA) 2 (51724960071).jpg

Quartzite is a common, crystalline-textured, intermediate- to high-grade metamorphic rock. It forms by metamorphism of quartzose sandstones or siltstones. Quartzite can be entirely composed of interlocking quartz crystals, or the original sand grains may still be visible. This rock is hard (H = 7), will not bubble in acid (unlike marble), and can be almost any color.

The term “quartzite” has been used in geology to refer to crystalline, quartzose metamorphic rocks and to hard, well-cemented quartzose sandstones that have not been subjected to metamorphism. It is difficult to not call hard, well-cemented sandstones “quartzite” - for example, the Clinch Quartzite in the Appalachian Mountains and the Eureka Quartzite of the Great Basin in western USA, but the Clinch and Eureka aren’t metamorphic rocks. The term "metaquartzite" has been used by some geologists to refer to crystalline-textured, quartzose rocks that have been metamorphosed. This implies that “quartzite” be restricted to well-cemented, non-metamorphosed sandstones. I don’t often see the term metaquartzite in the geologic literature.

The whitish quartzites seen here (interpreted as part of a metavolcanic unit) are Piedmont metamorphic basement rocks in Virginia. They are exposed in the footwall almost adjacent to a half-graben's eastern boundary fault, a normal fault (= obscured by vegetation at this locality). The hanging wall (a little north of this spot) consists of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks representing Triassic rift basin fill. The half-graben is the Danville Basin (Dan River Basin).