Rock Identifier

Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Red Garnet

Red Garnet

The classic deep-red garnet — usually almandine or pyrope — long worn as the fiery 'carbuncle' gem and January's birthstone.

gemstone
Bekily Garnet

Bekily Garnet

A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.

gemstone
Malaia Garnet

Malaia Garnet

A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.

gemstone
Lotus Garnet

Lotus Garnet

A delicate pinkish-purple to peach garnet from Tanzania, a pyrope-spessartine blend named for the soft colors of a lotus flower.

gemstone
Strawberry Garnet

Strawberry Garnet

A bright strawberry-red garnet, typically an almandine-pyrope blend prized for its juicy, lively red color in jewelry.

gemstone
Peach Garnet

Peach Garnet

A soft peach to pinkish-orange garnet, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for its warm, delicate color.

gemstone
Idaho Star Garnet

Idaho Star Garnet

Idaho's official state gem: a dark almandine garnet showing a four- or rare six-rayed star from oriented rutile inclusions.

gemstone
Raspberry Garnet

Raspberry Garnet

A vivid pinkish-red rhodolite garnet named for its raspberry color, a bright pyrope-almandine blend popular in jewelry.

gemstone
Grape Garnet

Grape Garnet

A trademarked deep purple-red rhodolite garnet from India, named for its rich grape-like color from the pyrope-almandine series.

gemstone
Masasi Blue Garnet

Masasi Blue Garnet

Masasi Blue Garnet is a rare vanadium-bearing color-change garnet from Tanzania that appears blue-green by day and purplish-red indoors.

gemstone
Color Change Garnet

Color Change Garnet

A rare garnet that dramatically shifts color from greenish in daylight to reddish under lamplight, rivaling alexandrite.

gemstone
Champagne Garnet

Champagne Garnet

A soft brownish-golden garnet named for its champagne color, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for warm, neutral tones.

gemstone
Lindi Garnet

Lindi Garnet

Lindi Garnet is a rare vanadium-rich color-change garnet from Tanzania's Lindi region, shifting from blue-green daylight tones to purple-red.

gemstone
Gypcrete

Gypcrete

A gypsum-rich duricrust that forms by evaporation in arid soils, cementing sediment into a hard surface layer in deserts.

sedimentary
Angelite

Angelite

A soft pale-blue calcium sulfate, the anhydrous form of gypsum, prized as a gentle, calming tumbled stone.

mineral
Rock Gypsum

Rock Gypsum

A soft sedimentary evaporite made of massive gypsum, deposited when sulfate-rich seawater or lake water evaporates and concentrates.

sedimentary
Desert Rose

Desert Rose

A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.

mineral
Buergerite

Buergerite

A rare iron-rich (ferric) species of the tourmaline group, dark brown to bronze-black, named after crystallographer Martin Buerger.

mineral