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.

Limonite is an amorphous brown iron oxide ore, the rust-colored material behind ochre pigments and bog iron.

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.

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

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

A rare brown chalcedony containing thin iron-oxide layers that produce flashing, fiery rainbow iridescence like trapped flames.

A porous, spongy freshwater limestone that precipitates around springs, streams and lakes, often encrusting plants and moss.

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

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

A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.

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

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