Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Frog Skin Jasper
A mottled green jasper whose blotchy spotting resembles frog skin, valued by lapidaries for its earthy, camouflage-like patterns.
gemstoneRoyal Sahara Jasper
A warm desert-toned picture jasper trade stone with sandy tan, gold, and brown swirls evoking Saharan dunes.
mineral
Cherry Creek Jasper
A landscape-patterned Chinese jasper prized for warm cherry-red, cream, and green bands resembling painted scenery.
mineralWillow Creek Jasper
A prized Idaho jasper known for porcelain-smooth pastel pinks, creams, and greens in soft swirling, orbicular patterns.
mineralSonoran Sunset Jasper
A vivid copper-bearing Mexican stone of red cuprite and green chrysocolla that evokes a desert sunset.
mineralStarry Night Jasper
A dark jasper trade stone speckled with pale flecks resembling a starry night sky, valued for its cosmic appearance.
mineral
Bloodstone
A dark green chalcedony speckled with blood-red spots of iron oxide, traditionally known as heliotrope.
gemstone
Mookaite
A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.
mineral
Unakite
An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.
metamorphicBamboo Agate
An agate whose layered, segmented banding resembles the jointed stalks and leaves of bamboo.
gemstone
Turritella Agate
A brown fossiliferous chalcedony packed with spiral freshwater snail shells, technically agatized fossil rock from Wyoming.
sedimentary
Menilite Opal
An opaque grey-brown common opal forming nodules and concretions, historically called liver opal for its dull brownish color.
mineral
Tiger Iron
A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.
metamorphic
Staurolite-mica Schist
A mica schist studded with red-brown staurolite porphyroblasts, including the famous cross-shaped twins called fairy stones.
metamorphic
Andalusite
A pleochroic aluminum silicate that flashes green and reddish-brown from different angles, with a cross-marked variety called chiastolite.
mineral
Aventurine Feldspar
A feldspar, better known as sunstone, that sparkles with metallic glints from tiny mineral platelets, an effect called aventurescence.
gemstone
Pisolite
A sedimentary rock built from pea-sized concentric spheres called pisoids, often carbonate but sometimes iron or aluminum-rich.
sedimentaryGrey Moonstone
A smoky gray feldspar moonstone, often called new moon stone, showing a silvery-blue adularescent sheen over a translucent gray body.
gemstone
Rutilated Quartz
Clear or smoky quartz threaded with golden to reddish needles of rutile, also poetically called Venus hair stone.
crystal
Orbicular Granite
A rare granitic rock containing concentric, onion-like spheres called orbicules, prized as a striking ornamental stone.
igneous
Purple Tourmaline
An uncommon purple to violet tourmaline colored by manganese, the deeper reddish-purple stones sometimes called siberite.
gemstoneLithographic Limestone
Extremely fine-grained, even-textured limestone famous for lithographic printing and for preserving exquisite fossils like Archaeopteryx.
sedimentary
Travertine
A banded, porous limestone deposited by mineral springs, prized as a warm-toned natural building and tile stone.
sedimentary
Angelite
A soft pale-blue calcium sulfate, the anhydrous form of gypsum, prized as a gentle, calming tumbled stone.
mineral