Some quartzites contain just enough weather-susceptible nutrient-bearing minerals such as carbonates and chlorite to form a loamy, fairly fertile though shallow and stony soil.

Minor amounts of former cementing materials, iron oxide, silica, carbonate and clay, often migrate during recrystallization, causing streaks and lenses to form within the quartzite.

[6][4] When sandstone is subjected to the great heat and pressure associated with regional metamorphism, the individual quartz grains recrystallize along with the former cementing material.

Orthoquartzite (in the narrow sense) is often 99% SiO2 with only very minor amounts of iron oxide and trace resistant minerals such as zircon, rutile and magnetite.

[7] In the United States, formations of quartzite can be found in some parts of Pennsylvania, the Washington DC area, eastern South Dakota, Central Texas,[9] southwest Minnesota,[10] Devil's Lake State Park in the Baraboo Range in Wisconsin,[11] the Wasatch Range in Utah,[12] near Salt Lake City, Utah and as resistant ridges in the Appalachians[13] and other mountain regions.

The quartzite-rhyolite successions may record the formation of back-arc basins along the margin of Laurentia, the ancient core of North America, between episodes of mountain building during the assembly of the continent.

A good example of a quartzite area is on the Corraun Peninsula in County Mayo, which has a very thin layer of Irish Atlantic Bog covering it.

In the United Kingdom, a craggy ridge of quartzite called the Stiperstones (early Ordovician – Arenig Epoch, 500 Ma) runs parallel with the Pontesford-Linley fault, 6 km north-west of the Long Mynd in south Shropshire.

In the Scottish Highlands, several mountains (e.g. Foinaven, Arkle) composed of Cambrian quartzite can be found in the far north-west Moine Thrust Belt running in a narrow band from Loch Eriboll in a south-westerly direction to Skye.

[18] In continental Europe, various regionally isolated quartzite deposits exist at surface level in a belt from the Rhenish Massif and the German Central Highlands into the Western Czech Republic, for example in the Taunus and Harz mountains.

[21] The highest mountain in Mozambique, Monte Binga (2436 m), as well as the rest of the surrounding Chimanimani Plateau are composed of very hard, pale grey, Precambrian quartzite.

Cutting, grinding, chipping, sanding, drilling, and polishing natural and manufactured stone products can release hazardous levels of very small, crystalline silica dust particles into the air that workers breathe.

[26] Crystalline silica of respirable size is a recognized human carcinogen and may lead to other diseases of the lungs such as silicosis and pulmonary fibrosis.