Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Ironstone

An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.

Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.

A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.

Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.

Small ironstone concretions from Yowah, Queensland, whose hollow or veined centers hold brilliant precious boulder opal.

Precious opal that forms in thin veins within brown ironstone boulders, cut with the host rock left as a natural dark backing.

Siderite is an iron carbonate ore, a brown rhombohedral mineral of the calcite group found in sediments and veins.

Boulder opal from the Koroit field in Queensland, famous for intricate ironstone matrix patterns laced with colorful precious opal.

Hard surface crust formed when iron oxides cement soil and sediment into a rusty, durable duricrust in tropical and weathered terrains.

Boulder opal from the Quilpie district of Queensland, Australia, with bright color set in dark ironstone matrix.