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.

Green Quartz

Green Quartz

A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.

crystal
Garden Quartz

Garden Quartz

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

crystal
Clear Quartz

Clear Quartz

The pure, colorless form of crystalline quartz, valued for its clarity, abundance, and piezoelectric properties used in electronics.

crystal
Cathedral Quartz

Cathedral Quartz

Quartz with a stepped, multi-pointed structure of parallel side crystals resembling the spires of a cathedral.

crystal
Blue Quartz

Blue Quartz

A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.

crystal
Lemurian Seed Quartz

Lemurian Seed Quartz

Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.

crystal
Star Rose Quartz

Star Rose Quartz

Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.

gemstone
Golden Healer Quartz

Golden Healer Quartz

Quartz colored or coated by golden iron oxides such as limonite or goethite, giving a warm sunlit yellow glow.

crystal
Quartz-mica Schist

Quartz-mica Schist

A foliated metamorphic rock of interlayered quartz and mica, producing a sparkling, easily split rock from metamorphosed sandy shales.

metamorphic
Milk Opal

Milk Opal

An opaque to translucent milky-white common opal valued for its soft porcelain-like color rather than play-of-color.

gemstone
Amegreen

Amegreen

A natural bicolor quartz blending amethyst purple with prasiolite green in a single crystal, prized as a metaphysical heart-crown stone.

crystal
Matte Obsidian

Matte Obsidian

Obsidian with a dull, non-reflective surface from natural weathering or deliberate sandblasting/etching, rather than a distinct type of volcanic glass.

igneous
White Tourmaline

White Tourmaline

A colorless to milky-white elbaite tourmaline known as achroite, the rare nearly pigment-free member of the tourmaline group.

gemstone
Cloudy Obsidian

Cloudy Obsidian

Obsidian with a hazy, cloud-like translucency caused by uneven distribution of tiny bubbles or incipient crystallites in the glass.

igneous
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
White Opal

White Opal

The most common precious opal, with a pale milky body that shows softer pastel flashes of play-of-color throughout.

gemstone
White Obsidian

White Obsidian

A pale, partly crystallized volcanic glass; genuinely white obsidian is uncommon and usually reflects devitrification or spherulitic growth in the glass.

igneous
White Moonstone

White Moonstone

The classic moonstone: a milky-white feldspar showing the prized floating blue-to-silver adularescent glow that gives the gem its name.

gemstone
Opalite

Opalite

A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.

crystal
Citrine

Citrine

The golden-yellow variety of quartz, ranging from pale lemon to deep madeira amber, often produced by heating amethyst.

gemstone
Prase

Prase

An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.

crystal
Chalcedony

Chalcedony

A waxy, translucent microcrystalline form of quartz that serves as the parent group for agate, jasper, carnelian, and onyx.

mineral
Ametrine

Ametrine

A natural bicolor quartz that combines purple amethyst and golden citrine in a single crystal.

crystal
Herkimer Diamond

Herkimer Diamond

Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.

crystal