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.

Snake Skin Agate

Snake Skin Agate

A chalcedony with a distinctive scaly, reptile-skin surface texture, typically in pale tan, pink, and gray tones.

gemstone
Holley Blue Agate

Holley Blue Agate

A rare translucent lavender-blue agate from the Holley area of Oregon, prized for its soft purple-blue color.

gemstone
Ruin Agate

Ruin Agate

A fractured and re-cemented agate whose angular broken bands resemble crumbling walls and ruined cityscapes when polished.

gemstone

Mocha Agate

A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.

gemstone
Fire Agate

Fire Agate

A rare brown chalcedony containing thin iron-oxide layers that produce flashing, fiery rainbow iridescence like trapped flames.

gemstone
Blue Lace Agate

Blue Lace Agate

A soft sky-blue banded chalcedony prized for its delicate, lace-like white and blue swirling patterns.

gemstone
Tree Agate

Tree Agate

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

gemstone

Owyhee Blue Agate

A soft sky-blue chalcedony from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for its calming, opaque powder-blue color.

gemstone
Sagenite Agate

Sagenite Agate

A chalcedony agate filled with radiating needle-like mineral inclusions, prized for its starburst and spray patterns.

gemstone
Seam Agate

Seam Agate

Agate that forms in flat cracks or veins of host rock rather than rounded nodules, producing straight, parallel banding.

gemstone
Onyx

Onyx

A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, classically black or black-and-white, long favored for cameos and beads.

gemstone
Honey Agate

Honey Agate

A warm golden to amber translucent chalcedony agate whose color and glow resemble honey, sometimes with banding.

gemstone
Cathedral Agate

Cathedral Agate

A banded agate whose internal structures resemble cathedral spires, arches, or a city skyline of towers and pinnacles.

gemstone

Cloud Agate

A chalcedony agate with soft, billowing cloud-like masses of gray and white suspended in a translucent body.

gemstone

Bamboo Agate

An agate whose layered, segmented banding resembles the jointed stalks and leaves of bamboo.

gemstone

Black Onyx

A solid jet-black chalcedony, usually a dyed and treated agate, prized for sleek polished beads, cabochons, and intaglios.

gemstone
Queensland Agate

Queensland Agate

Banded agate from Queensland, Australia, including the famous Agate Creek field, known for vivid fortification patterns.

gemstone

Butterstone Jasper

A soft-toned cream-to-butterscotch jasper colored by iron oxides, prized by lapidaries for its smooth, even, opaque finish.

gemstone

Frost Agate

A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.

gemstone
Feather Agate

Feather Agate

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

gemstone
Black Jasper

Black Jasper

A dense, opaque black variety of microcrystalline quartz historically used as a touchstone for testing precious metals.

mineral
Shadow Agate

Shadow Agate

A banded agate that displays a moving shadow or flash across its surface when tilted under light, caused by closely spaced parallel bands.

gemstone

Scenic Agate

A translucent agate whose mineral inclusions resemble miniature landscapes of trees, hills, and horizons within the stone.

gemstone
Brown Jasper

Brown Jasper

An opaque earth-toned jasper colored brown by iron oxides, ranging from pale tan to deep chocolate.

mineral