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.

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
Arizona Ruby

Arizona Ruby

Arizona Ruby is a chromium-rich pyrope garnet from Arizona, often gathered from anthills, valued for its intense ruby-like red.

gemstone
Polychrome Jasper

Polychrome Jasper

A warm earth-toned jasper from Madagascar in flowing reds, oranges and golds, also called desert jasper, discovered in the early 2000s.

gemstone
Mookaite

Mookaite

A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.

mineral
Chrysocolla

Chrysocolla

A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.

mineral
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
Chalcocite

Chalcocite

A dark gray copper sulfide that is one of the richest copper ores, prized by collectors when found as rare sharp crystals.

mineral
Sherry Tourmaline

Sherry Tourmaline

A warm sherry-brown to orange-brown tourmaline, usually magnesium-rich dravite, named for its rich fortified-wine color.

gemstone
Reedmergnerite

Reedmergnerite

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

mineral
Mylonite

Mylonite

A fine-grained, strongly foliated rock formed deep in fault zones where rocks flowed and ground down rather than fracturing.

metamorphic
Copper

Copper

A soft, reddish native metal with excellent conductivity, mined for wiring, plumbing, and alloys like bronze and brass.

mineral
Spessartite Garnet

Spessartite Garnet

A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.

gemstone
Purple Tourmaline

Purple Tourmaline

An uncommon purple to violet tourmaline colored by manganese, the deeper reddish-purple stones sometimes called siberite.

gemstone
Monazite

Monazite

A reddish-brown rare-earth phosphate that is a primary ore of cerium, thorium and other rare-earth elements, often found in placer sands.

mineral
Cognac Tourmaline

Cognac Tourmaline

A warm cognac-brown to reddish-brown tourmaline, typically magnesium-rich dravite, prized for its rich whisky-like color.

gemstone
Goldstone

Goldstone

A man-made glittering glass packed with tiny copper crystals, traditionally reddish-brown but also made in blue and green.

crystal
Color Change Garnet

Color Change Garnet

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

gemstone
Andalusite

Andalusite

A pleochroic aluminum silicate that flashes green and reddish-brown from different angles, with a cross-marked variety called chiastolite.

mineral
Ruin Agate

Ruin Agate

A fractured and re-cemented agate whose angular broken bands resemble crumbling walls and ruined cityscapes when polished.

gemstone