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.

Fire Opal

Fire Opal

A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.

gemstone

Malaia Garnet

A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.

gemstone

Sunset Opal

An opal with warm sunset hues of orange, amber, and red, prized for its glowing fiery body color reminiscent of dusk skies.

gemstone

Sunset Agate

A warmly colored chalcedony agate with reds, oranges, golds, and pinks that blend like the glowing bands of a sunset sky.

gemstone
Mandarin Garnet

Mandarin Garnet

The intensely glowing orange variety of spessartine garnet, prized for its pure 'Fanta-orange' fire and high brilliance.

gemstone
Peach Garnet

Peach Garnet

A soft peach to pinkish-orange garnet, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for its warm, delicate color.

gemstone
Honey Garnet

Honey Garnet

A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.

gemstone
Cinnamon Stone

Cinnamon Stone

The warm cinnamon-to-honey-brown variety of grossular garnet, also known as hessonite, with a characteristic swirly internal texture.

gemstone
Spessartite Garnet

Spessartite Garnet

A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.

gemstone

Peach Opal

A gentle peach-to-apricot opal, mostly common opal colored by trace iron, prized for its soft warm pastel body.

gemstone

Flame Opal

A glowing orange-to-red opal whose warm body color resembles flame; some stones add flashes of play-of-color.

gemstone
Tangerine Quartz

Tangerine Quartz

Clear quartz coated with orange-red hematite, giving points a vivid tangerine color, mainly from Brazil.

crystal

Apricot Agate

A soft peachy-orange variety of banded chalcedony, naturally iron-tinted or dyed, popular for warm-toned beads and jewelry.

gemstone
Mexican Fire Opal

Mexican Fire Opal

A transparent to translucent opal prized for its glowing orange-to-red body color, mined chiefly in the volcanic highlands of Mexico.

gemstone

Peach Moonstone

A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.

gemstone

Chrome Spessartine

Chrome Spessartine is a rare chromium-bearing manganese garnet whose trace chromium intensifies its already vivid orange color.

gemstone
Sherry Tourmaline

Sherry Tourmaline

A warm sherry-brown to orange-brown tourmaline, usually magnesium-rich dravite, named for its rich fortified-wine color.

gemstone
Matrix Opal

Matrix Opal

Opal in which precious play-of-color is intimately dispersed through the pores of its host rock rather than forming a solid seam.

gemstone
Green Marble

Green Marble

A green ornamental stone, often serpentine-rich marble or verde antique, valued for its rich green color and white veining.

metamorphic
Dacite

Dacite

A fine-grained volcanic rock intermediate between andesite and rhyolite, common at explosive stratovolcanoes.

igneous
Diorite

Diorite

A coarse-grained intrusive rock with a distinctive salt-and-pepper look, the plutonic equivalent of andesite.

igneous
Serpentinite

Serpentinite

A green, often mottled metamorphic rock formed by the hydration of mantle rocks, soft and waxy with a smooth, slippery feel.

metamorphic
Perthite

Perthite

An intimate intergrowth of potassium feldspar and sodium feldspar formed when a single alkali feldspar unmixes on cooling, producing fine wavy lamellae.

mineral
Serpentine

Serpentine

A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.

mineral