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.

Rubellite

Rubellite

The red to raspberry-pink variety of tourmaline, prized for its vivid ruby-like color that holds under both daylight and artificial light.

gemstone
Almandine Garnet

Almandine Garnet

The most common garnet, an iron aluminum silicate in deep red to brownish-red hues, used as a gem and an industrial abrasive.

gemstone
Zincite

Zincite

A rare zinc oxide best known for its deep red to orange color, classically from Franklin, New Jersey, and as colorful man-made crystals.

mineral
Jasper

Jasper

An opaque, often colorfully patterned variety of chalcedony quartz, popular for tumbling, carving, and jewelry.

mineral
Rutile

Rutile

Rutile is a major titanium ore and the famous golden needle inclusion that gives rutilated quartz its shimmering threads.

mineral
Sardonyx

Sardonyx

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

gemstone
Plum Tourmaline

Plum Tourmaline

A purplish, plum-toned elbaite tourmaline colored by manganese, blending the red of rubellite with violet-blue undertones.

gemstone
Outlaw Jasper

Outlaw Jasper

A boldly patterned western jasper in browns, reds, and golds, prized by lapidaries for its dramatic scenic and brecciated figures.

gemstone
Raspberry Beryl

Raspberry Beryl

A trade name for raspberry-pink beryl-family gems, most often the cesium-rich mineral pezzottaite from Madagascar.

gemstone
Aventurine

Aventurine

A translucent quartz speckled with glittery mineral inclusions that produce a shimmering aventurescence, most often green.

crystal
Bloodstone Jasper

Bloodstone Jasper

A dark green jasper-chalcedony speckled with red iron-oxide spots, classically known as bloodstone or heliotrope.

mineral
Pyrargyrite

Pyrargyrite

A silver antimony sulfosalt known as dark ruby silver, an important silver ore with deep red internal reflections.

mineral
Cuprite

Cuprite

Cuprite is a deep red copper oxide and an important secondary copper ore, prized for its rare ruby-red gem crystals.

mineral
Spinel

Spinel

A durable magnesium aluminum oxide gem that occurs in many colors and was long mistaken for ruby.

gemstone
Scoria

Scoria

A dark, highly vesicular volcanic rock full of gas bubbles, denser than pumice, common as red or black lava rock.

igneous
Mahogany Obsidian

Mahogany Obsidian

A natural volcanic glass with rich brown and black mahogany-like swirls created by iron oxide inclusions.

igneous
Lamprophyre

Lamprophyre

A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.

igneous
Tangerine Quartz

Tangerine Quartz

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

crystal
Flame Opal

Flame Opal

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

gemstone
Proustite

Proustite

A scarlet-red silver arsenic sulfide known as light ruby silver, a striking but light-sensitive ore that darkens on exposure.

mineral
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
Andesine-Labradorite

Andesine-Labradorite

An intermediate plagioclase feldspar spanning andesine and labradorite, marketed as a red-to-green gem, much of which is copper-diffusion treated.

gemstone
Raspberry Tourmaline

Raspberry Tourmaline

A vivid raspberry-pink to pinkish-red elbaite tourmaline, a bright, cheerful member of the rubellite family colored by manganese.

gemstone
Pezzottaite

Pezzottaite

A rare cesium-rich, beryl-related gem mineral with a raspberry-pink color, first found in Madagascar in 2002.

gemstone