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.

Gary Green Jasper

Gary Green Jasper

An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.

mineral
Forest Green Tourmaline

Forest Green Tourmaline

A deep, rich forest-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite) colored mainly by iron, with strong pleochroism and excellent durability.

gemstone
Dark Green Tourmaline

Dark Green Tourmaline

Deeply saturated green tourmaline colored by iron, often so dark it appears nearly black until viewed in bright light.

gemstone
Cat's Eye Green Tourmaline

Cat's Eye Green Tourmaline

Green tourmaline cut as a cabochon to show a sharp moving band of light (chatoyancy) caused by fine parallel inclusions.

gemstone
Gray Obsidian

Gray Obsidian

Obsidian in gray tones, often semi-translucent, colored by light scattering and minor inclusions within the volcanic glass.

igneous
Porcelanite

Porcelanite

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

sedimentary
Radiolarite

Radiolarite

A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock built from the microscopic silica skeletons of radiolarians, often forming colorful ribbon-banded cherts.

sedimentary
Greywacke

Greywacke

A hard, dark, poorly sorted sandstone with a muddy matrix, typically deposited by underwater turbidity currents.

sedimentary
Stibnite

Stibnite

Stibnite is the chief ore of antimony, famous for its dramatic clusters of bladed, silvery-gray metallic crystals.

mineral
Botswana Agate

Botswana Agate

A finely banded agate from Botswana known for delicate parallel layers of grey, pink, and white.

mineral
Pyrolusite

Pyrolusite

A black manganese dioxide mineral that is the most important ore of manganese and a source of black pigment and dendrites.

mineral
Granite

Granite

A coarse-grained, speckled intrusive rock built from quartz, feldspar, and mica, forming the bedrock of the continents.

igneous
Cobaltite

Cobaltite

A silver-white cobalt arsenic sulfide that is a leading ore of cobalt, forming bright metallic cubic and pyritohedral crystals.

mineral
Silcrete

Silcrete

Extremely hard surface rock formed when silica cements soil and sediment into a tough duricrust in arid landscapes.

sedimentary
Andesite

Andesite

A fine-grained, intermediate volcanic rock common at subduction-zone volcanoes, between basalt and rhyolite in composition.

igneous
Granodiorite

Granodiorite

A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.

igneous
Semiblack Opal

Semiblack Opal

Opal with a dark grey body tone sitting between black and light opal, giving play-of-color rich contrast at an accessible price.

gemstone
White Agate

White Agate

A white to grayish banded chalcedony, the natural base color of much agate and the substrate for many dyed stones.

gemstone
Mint Tourmaline

Mint Tourmaline

A soft, pastel minty-green tourmaline prized for its fresh, light color, a delicate variety of green elbaite.

gemstone
Black Moonstone

Black Moonstone

A dark gray-to-black feldspar variety of moonstone that shows blue and white adularescent flash against a smoky body.

gemstone
Prasiolite

Prasiolite

A pale green variety of quartz, usually created by heat-treating amethyst, often marketed as green amethyst.

gemstone
Mint Obsidian

Mint Obsidian

A pale mint-green glass sold as obsidian; most uniform light-green material on the market is manufactured glass rather than natural volcanic obsidian.

igneous
Olive Tourmaline

Olive Tourmaline

An earthy olive to yellowish-green tourmaline, a muted green-brown gem variety colored by iron with subtle warm undertones.

gemstone
Mint Opal

Mint Opal

A soft mint-green variety of common opal, usually opaque and colored by trace copper or nontronite inclusions rather than play-of-color.

gemstone