Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Dendritic Opal

A common opal with branching, tree-like mineral inclusions that create natural fern, moss, or landscape patterns.

A jasper marked with soft feather- or plume-like mineral inclusions that drift through a pale silica body.

Basalt that has been metamorphosed, developing new minerals like chlorite, actinolite, and epidote that give it a greenish color.

A translucent agate containing delicate three-dimensional feather- or plant-like plumes of mineral inclusions suspended in chalcedony.

A high-grade metamorphic rock formed in the deep, hot crust, marked by anhydrous minerals like pyroxene and garnet.

Agate containing radiating sprays of mineral needles that fan out like bursting stars within the chalcedony.

Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.

A translucent chalcedony agate containing delicate, feather- or plume-shaped mineral inclusions that branch like soft feathers.

A common opal containing dendritic or mossy mineral inclusions that form miniature landscape-like scenes inside the stone.

A banded jasper showing parallel ribbon-like stripes of contrasting color formed by layered silica and mineral deposition.

A common opal containing moss- or fern-like mineral inclusions that resemble plants suspended in a pale silica body.

Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.

A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.

A white chalcedony filled with green or black dendritic, tree-like mineral inclusions that resemble ferns or moss frozen in stone.

A schist derived from clay-rich sediments, rich in mica and often bearing index minerals like garnet, staurolite, or kyanite.