Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Verdite

A rich green, fuchsite-rich metamorphic rock from southern Africa, prized as a carving and ornamental stone.

A coarse rock of angular, sharp-edged fragments cemented in a matrix, marking nearby rockfall, faulting, or impact.

Sand-grained limestone composed of carbonate particles such as shell fragments and ooids cemented into a calcite rock.

Agate that was shattered and naturally re-cemented by silica, creating a mosaic of angular fragments in a quartz matrix.

A rare ultrapotassic lamproite rich in phlogopite mica and diopside, classically from the Leucite Hills of Wyoming.

A rare breccia formed by meteorite impact, containing shocked rock fragments and glassy melt blobs welded together.

A limestone packed with visible shells and shell fragments, recording the accumulation of marine invertebrate remains on ancient sea floors.

A cohesive fault rock formed by brittle crushing and grinding of rock along a fault zone, with angular fragments in a fine matrix.

A jasper made of angular fragments naturally cemented back together, typically showing red and brown pieces in a quartz matrix.

A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.

A pegmatitic granite in which quartz and feldspar intergrow to resemble ancient runic or Hebrew script.