The Oligocene Chuska Sandstone is a geologic formation that crops out in the Chuska Mountains of northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. The formation is a remnant of a great sand sea, or erg, that once covered an area of 140,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi) reaching from the present locations of the Chuska Mountains to near Albuquerque and to the southwest. This erg deposited a succession of sandstone beds exceeded in thickness only by the Navajo Sandstone on the Colorado Plateau.