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.

Star Moonstone

A rare moonstone that shows a four-rayed star of light (asterism) across its domed surface along with adularescence.

gemstone
Yellow Labradorite

Yellow Labradorite

A transparent yellow to golden gem variety of labradorite feldspar, usually faceted to show its clear, warm color.

gemstone
Green Moonstone

Green Moonstone

A pale green variety of feldspar moonstone showing a soft white or bluish adularescent sheen over a greenish body.

gemstone
Albitite

Albitite

A pale rock made almost entirely of the sodium feldspar albite, formed by sodic magmatism or sodium metasomatism.

igneous

Grey Moonstone

A smoky gray feldspar moonstone, often called new moon stone, showing a silvery-blue adularescent sheen over a translucent gray body.

gemstone
Feldspathic Sandstone

Feldspathic Sandstone

A feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that points to granitic source rocks eroded quickly in dry or cold climates.

sedimentary
Bostonite

Bostonite

A fine-grained, feldspar-rich dike rock with a trachytic texture, essentially a hypabyssal equivalent of trachyte or syenite.

igneous
Cleavelandite

Cleavelandite

A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.

mineral
Limburgite

Limburgite

A dark, glass-rich volcanic rock of olivine and augite phenocrysts set in a feldspar-free glassy groundmass, named from the Kaiserstuhl region.

igneous
Moonstone

Moonstone

A feldspar gem famous for adularescence, a floating blue-white glow that shimmers across the stone like moonlight.

gemstone

Peach Moonstone

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

gemstone
Syenite

Syenite

A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.

igneous
Belomorite

Belomorite

A regional Russian name for a moonstone-like plagioclase from the White Sea coast, prized for its bluish, slightly iridescent schiller.

gemstone
Porphyritic Obsidian

Porphyritic Obsidian

Natural volcanic glass speckled with embedded mineral crystals (phenocrysts) such as feldspar or cristobalite that grew before the lava chilled.

igneous
White Moonstone

White Moonstone

The classic moonstone: a milky-white feldspar showing the prized floating blue-to-silver adularescent glow that gives the gem its name.

gemstone

Cat's Eye Moonstone

A moonstone variety displaying a moving band of light (chatoyancy) across its surface in addition to the classic moonstone glow.

gemstone

Cat's Eye Labradorite

A labradorite feldspar cut to show a moving band of light (chatoyancy), sometimes combined with labradorescent color flashes.

gemstone
Black Moonstone

Black Moonstone

A dark gray-to-black feldspar variety of moonstone that shows blue and white adularescent flash against a smoky body.

gemstone

Sesame Jasper

A finely speckled pale jasper trade stone named for its sesame-seed-like flecks, closely related to Kiwi Jasper.

mineral
Khondalite

Khondalite

A high-grade metamorphic gneiss of garnet, sillimanite, quartz, and graphite, derived from ancient aluminous sediments.

metamorphic

Kiwi Jasper

A speckled green-and-black stone resembling kiwi fruit, technically a quartz-amazonite aggregate rather than true jasper.

mineral
Kakortokite

Kakortokite

A spectacularly banded agpaitic nepheline syenite of alternating red eudialyte, black amphibole and white feldspar layers from Ilimaussaq, Greenland.

igneous
Kersantite

Kersantite

A dark mica lamprophyre with biotite and augite phenocrysts in a plagioclase-dominated groundmass, the feldspar counterpart of minette.

igneous
Dalmatian Stone

Dalmatian Stone

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

igneous