Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Lithic Sandstone

A sandstone in which the dominant grains are fragments of pre-existing rocks rather than single minerals, signaling rapid erosion nearby.

A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.

A coarse sedimentary rock of rounded pebbles and gravel cemented in a finer matrix, recording ancient rivers and beaches.

A soft, lightweight siliceous sedimentary rock made of fossil diatom remains, prized as a fine natural abrasive and polishing powder.

A cohesive fault rock formed by brittle crushing and grinding of rock along a fault zone, with angular fragments in a fine matrix.

Agate that was shattered and naturally re-cemented by silica, creating a mosaic of angular fragments in a quartz matrix.

A jasper made of angular fragments naturally cemented back together, typically showing red and brown pieces in a quartz matrix.