Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Goethite

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

Quartz colored or coated by golden iron oxides such as limonite or goethite, giving a warm sunlit yellow glow.

A soft, porous iron ore of limonite and goethite that forms in wetlands and bogs, historically the first iron source for many cultures.

A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.

A hard, dark variety of chert that knaps into razor-sharp edges and sparks against steel, central to Stone Age technology.

A rare agate that forms naturally with flat polygonal faces and angular geometric shapes rather than the usual rounded nodule.

Rounded nodules of translucent obsidian, named after a Native American legend, that glow smoky brown when held to light.

A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.

A rare boron-bearing feldspar, the boron analogue of albite, first found in oil-shale nodules of the Green River Formation.

Agate that forms in flat cracks or veins of host rock rather than rounded nodules, producing straight, parallel banding.

An opaque grey-brown common opal forming nodules and concretions, historically called liver opal for its dull brownish color.