Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Jaspillite

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.

A chalcedony with a distinctive scaly, reptile-skin surface texture, typically in pale tan, pink, and gray tones.

Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.

A prized Idaho jasper known for porcelain-smooth pastel pinks, creams, and greens in soft swirling, orbicular patterns.

A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.

A single beryl crystal showing two distinct color zones, such as aquamarine blue grading into morganite pink, within one stone.

A massive green-to-pink hydrogrossular garnet from South Africa used as a jade simulant, not a true jade.

A soft pink to crimson hydrated cobalt arsenate, famous as cobalt bloom that signals nearby cobalt ores.

A striking rock of green zoisite studded with red-pink ruby crystals and black hornblende, also called anyolite.

Tourmaline crystals displaying two or more distinct colors at once, including the famous pink-and-green watermelon variety.

A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.

A prized plume agate from near Carey, Idaho, showing red, pink and black feathery plumes floating in translucent chalcedony.

A metasomatic rock formed when alkali-rich fluids from carbonatite or alkaline intrusions transform surrounding country rock.