Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Dalmatian Stone

A cream-colored feldspar-and-quartz rock peppered with dark spots, named for its resemblance to a Dalmatian dog.

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

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

A soft, dark, organic-rich mud deposited in stagnant, oxygen-poor water, a key precursor to oil and gas source rocks.

A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.

A lustrous black titanium-rich garnet of the andradite series, found in alkaline igneous rocks like nepheline syenite and ijolite.

A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.

A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.