Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Midnight Lace Obsidian
A black volcanic glass threaded with delicate grey, swirling lace-like bands of flow lines that show beautifully when polished.
igneous
Aurora Obsidian
A trade name for rainbow-sheen obsidian whose aligned nanoparticles produce shifting aurora-like bands of color.
igneous
Enhydro Quartz
Quartz containing a sealed pocket of ancient water, often with a mobile air bubble that moves when the crystal is tilted.
crystal
Frost Agate
A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.
gemstone
Flower Jasper
A jasper whose radiating mineral clusters form flower-like rosettes scattered across an earthy background.
mineral
Feather Jasper
A jasper marked with soft feather- or plume-like mineral inclusions that drift through a pale silica body.
mineral
Granodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneous
Hawk's Eye
The blue-grey relative of tiger's eye, a chatoyant quartz showing a shifting band of light like a bird of prey's eye.
gemstone
Black Agate
A deep black variety of banded chalcedony, often closely related to or treated like onyx, used for jewelry and carvings.
gemstone
Zebra Jasper
A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Dendritic Jasper
A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.
mineral
Snakeskin Jasper
An opaque patterned jasper named for its scaly, snakeskin-like surface markings of interlocking tan and brown cells.
mineral
Flame Jasper
A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.
mineral
Porcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentary
Lace Obsidian
Black volcanic glass laced with delicate web-like veins of contrasting color, formed by flow banding and fine crystallization.
igneous
Flame Obsidian
Black volcanic glass that flashes flame-like bands of iridescent color when light strikes aligned nanoscale inclusions.
igneous
Felsite
A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.
igneous
Woodbine Jasper
An earthy-toned jasper with vine-like or scenic patterning, valued by lapidaries for warm browns, reds, and creams that polish to a smooth finish.
gemstone
Lithographic Limestone
Extremely fine-grained, even-textured limestone famous for lithographic printing and for preserving exquisite fossils like Archaeopteryx.
sedimentary
Starburst Agate
Agate containing radiating sprays of mineral needles that fan out like bursting stars within the chalcedony.
gemstone
Lizard Skin Jasper
A patterned jasper whose scaly, net-like markings recall reptile skin, popular with lapidaries for its organic camouflage look.
gemstone
Frog Skin Jasper
A mottled green jasper whose blotchy spotting resembles frog skin, valued by lapidaries for its earthy, camouflage-like patterns.
gemstone
Cloud Agate
A chalcedony agate with soft, billowing cloud-like masses of gray and white suspended in a translucent body.
gemstone
Silver Leaf Jasper
A gray-toned jasper with swirling cream, black, and brown leaf-like patterns, sometimes with druzy or agate pockets.
mineral