X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier infrared absorption spectroscopy (FTIR) were conducted to deepen our research on specific species and spectral characteristics of swelling clay minerals in the Pliocene sandstones in Xinghai, Qinghai province. XRD results show that swelling clay minerals are dominant clay minerals in the sandstones, which can be up to 97% in percentage. XRD patterns show 060 reflections of the samples occur both remarkably at 1.534  and 1.498 , indicating the samples contain physical mixtures of trioctahedral and dioctahedral swelling clay minerals, respectively. Further treatment of Li-300 ℃ heat and glycerol saturation shows the swelling clay minerals collapse to 9.3～9.9  with a partial expansion to ～18 . This indicates the swelling clay minerals dominate montmorillonite and contain minor saponite. The montmorillonite shows no swelling after Li-300 ℃ heat and glycerol saturation because of Li+ inserting into the octahedral layers, which balances the layer charge caused by the substitution of Mg to Al. FTIR results show the samples are composed of a kind of phyllosilicate with absorbed and structural water, which is in agreement with the results of XRD. Absorbed peaks at 913, 842, 880 cm-1, corresponding to OH associated with Al—Al, Al—Mg, and Al—Fe pairs, further indicates the minerals are dominant dioctahedron in structure. Meanwhile, absorbed peaks at 625 and 519 cm-1, corresponding to coupled Si—O and Al—O—Si deformation, indicates parts of Si is replaced by Al in tetrahedron. The spectral characteristics of the samples are against the presence of beidellite and nontronite based on the results of XRD and FTIR, while demonstrating an existence of montmorillonite. This study, to distinguish the specific species of swelling clay species in clay minerals, would be of great importance when using clay mineralogy to interpret provenance and climatic information.