Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Sandstone
A clastic sedimentary rock made of cemented sand grains, often quartz, recording ancient beaches, deserts, and rivers.
sedimentary
Red Jasper
An opaque, iron-rich variety of microcrystalline quartz known for its deep brick-red color and ancient history as a stone of strength and grounding.
gemstone
Shattuckite
A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.
mineral
Epidosite
A hard, pistachio-green rock composed mainly of epidote and quartz, formed by hydrothermal alteration of mafic rocks.
metamorphic
Ironstone
An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.
sedimentaryUnakite Jasper
An altered granite of pink feldspar, green epidote and quartz, mottled pink-and-green and popular as a tumbled and carving stone.
metamorphicGary Green Jasper
An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.
mineralKiwi Jasper
A speckled green-and-black stone resembling kiwi fruit, technically a quartz-amazonite aggregate rather than true jasper.
mineral
Geode
A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.
mineral
Graphic Granite
A pegmatitic granite in which quartz and feldspar intergrow to resemble ancient runic or Hebrew script.
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
Scenic Jasper
A patterned jasper whose bands and inclusions create miniature landscapes of deserts, mountains, and skies within the stone.
mineralRainforest Jasper
An Australian green rhyolite with eye-like orbs and earthy patterns marketed as jasper, evoking dense rainforest foliage.
igneousAmegreen
A natural bicolor quartz blending amethyst purple with prasiolite green in a single crystal, prized as a metaphysical heart-crown stone.
crystal
Graphic Feldspar
A pegmatite rock of feldspar intergrown with wedge-shaped quartz that resembles ancient runic or Hebrew writing.
igneous
Zebra Jasper
A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentaryKalahari Jasper
An African picture jasper from the Kalahari region with warm desert-toned banding evoking dunes and savanna.
mineral
Flint
A hard, dark variety of chert that knaps into razor-sharp edges and sparks against steel, central to Stone Age technology.
sedimentary
Mookaite Jasper
An Australian silicified radiolarite jasper in warm mustard, red, burgundy, and cream earth tones, found only in Western Australia.
sedimentary
Soapstone
A soft, talc-rich metamorphic rock with a soapy feel, easily carved and highly heat-resistant for cookware and sculpture.
metamorphicSard
A brownish-red to deep brown variety of chalcedony, closely related to carnelian but darker, colored by iron oxides.
mineralDragon Blood Jasper
A green-and-red ornamental stone of epidote and red piemontite or iron oxide, named for its dragon-skin coloring; not a true jasper.
metamorphic
Verdite
A rich green, fuchsite-rich metamorphic rock from southern Africa, prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
metamorphicQuartz Arenite
A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.
sedimentary