Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Sardonyx

A banded chalcedony combining reddish-brown sard with white or black onyx layers, prized since antiquity for carved cameos.

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

A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.

A black volcanic glass threaded with delicate grey, swirling lace-like bands of flow lines that show beautifully when polished.

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

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

A translucent agate containing delicate three-dimensional feather- or plant-like plumes of mineral inclusions suspended in chalcedony.

Agate containing radiating sprays of mineral needles that fan out like bursting stars within the chalcedony.

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

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

A nodular rhyolite geode-like ball whose plain exterior hides a star-shaped agate or chalcedony core when cut.