The Mössbauer techniques described here have important advantages over current methods for analyzing coal and petroleum source rock. During the first stage of analysis, the iron-containing minerals are identified by comparing the line positions with values for pure mineral samples. In the second stage, absorption intensities are used to deter mine relative amounts of mineral, and in the final step, absolute amounts of the mineral iron in the sample are found. In oil shales, four iron-containing minerals are predominant: pyrite, dolomite, siderite, and illite. The results are related to those from x-ray diffraction analysis where the correspondence is not always complete. ny spectroscopic method is intrinsically capable of yielding only three types of information: (1) identity-on the basis that identical sys tems behave in an identical way; (2) purity, or the composition of a physical mixture-on the basis that physical mixing does not alter spectro scopic properties; and (3) information concerning structure, bonding, and the forces between molecules. It is a strange commentary that the appli cation of Mossbauer spectroscopy to the first two of this list of three possibilities has come rather late, for these analytical applications would 1 Current address: Degussa Hanau,