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.

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
Skutterudite

Skutterudite

A metallic cobalt-nickel arsenide, an important cobalt ore, named for the Skutterud mines of Norway.

mineral
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
Indian Agate

Indian Agate

An affordable multicolored banded and mossy chalcedony from India, common in tumbled stones, beads, and meditation pieces.

gemstone
Green Agate

Green Agate

A green-hued banded chalcedony, ranging from natural soft greens to brightly dyed commercial stones.

gemstone
Magnesite

Magnesite

A magnesium carbonate mineral, usually chalky white with grey veining, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.

mineral
Plume Agate

Plume Agate

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

gemstone
Landscape Agate

Landscape Agate

A translucent chalcedony agate whose mineral inclusions form miniature scenes resembling mountains, trees, deserts, and skies.

gemstone
Agate

Agate

A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, famed for its colorful concentric layers and enormous range of patterns and colors.

mineral
Brecciated Agate

Brecciated Agate

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

gemstone

Paintbrush Agate

A plume agate whose inclusions form upright, bristly clusters resembling the strokes of a paintbrush.

gemstone
Goshenite

Goshenite

The colorless variety of beryl, named after Goshen, Massachusetts, prized for its purity, clarity, and durability.

gemstone

Prase

An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.

crystal
Flame Agate

Flame Agate

A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.

gemstone
Clear Beryl

Clear Beryl

Transparent, colorless beryl (goshenite), the pure form of the species valued for its clarity, hardness, and well-formed crystals.

gemstone
Sylvanite

Sylvanite

A silver-white gold-silver telluride and important gold-silver ore, noted for crystals arranged in writing-like graphic patterns.

mineral
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
Snake Skin Agate

Snake Skin Agate

A chalcedony with a distinctive scaly, reptile-skin surface texture, typically in pale tan, pink, and gray tones.

gemstone
Holley Blue Agate

Holley Blue Agate

A rare translucent lavender-blue agate from the Holley area of Oregon, prized for its soft purple-blue color.

gemstone
Ruin Agate

Ruin Agate

A fractured and re-cemented agate whose angular broken bands resemble crumbling walls and ruined cityscapes when polished.

gemstone
Howlite

Howlite

A white, porous borate mineral webbed with gray-black veins, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.

mineral

Peach Opal

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

gemstone

Mocha Agate

A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.

gemstone
Milky Quartz

Milky Quartz

The most common variety of quartz, milky white from microscopic fluid and gas inclusions, forming massive veins worldwide.

crystal