Table Mountain Sandstone Formation is, barring the Graafwater Formation, the oldest component of the Cape Supergroup. It was laid down as sandy deposits, with a maximum thickness of 2000 m, in a flooded rift valley. It contains no fossils. Its subsequent burial under the other Formations in the Cape Supergroup, and thereafter under the sediments brought down from the Falkland Mountain range, compressed and partially metamorphosed the original sandy deposits into very hard quartzitic sandstones, which in their folded configuration form the peaks, steep cliffs and rugged crags of the Cape Fold Mountains.