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.

Montana Moss Agate

Montana Moss Agate

A translucent chalcedony from Montana filled with black and red dendritic inclusions that look like moss, ferns, or scenic landscapes.

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
Owyhee Blue Agate

Owyhee Blue Agate

A soft sky-blue chalcedony from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for its calming, opaque powder-blue color.

gemstone
Crowley Ridge Agate

Crowley Ridge Agate

Agate found in the gravels of Crowley's Ridge in northeastern Arkansas, a stream-transported banded chalcedony.

gemstone
Lake Superior Agate

Lake Superior Agate

A glacier-transported banded agate from the Lake Superior region, colored by iron into rich reds and oranges, and Minnesota's state gemstone.

gemstone
Chalcedony

Chalcedony

A waxy, translucent microcrystalline form of quartz that serves as the parent group for agate, jasper, carnelian, and onyx.

mineral
Teepee Canyon Agate

Teepee Canyon Agate

A fortification agate from the Black Hills of South Dakota, known for tight, colorful banding closely related to the famous Fairburn agate.

gemstone
Dragon Vein Agate

Dragon Vein Agate

A treated chalcedony with a network of crackled veins, usually heated and dyed in vivid colors for affordable, eye-catching beads.

gemstone
Chrome Chalcedony

Chrome Chalcedony

A vivid green chalcedony colored by chromium, often called mtorolite, resembling chrysoprase but owing its color to chromium rather than nickel.

gemstone
Blue Chalcedony

Blue Chalcedony

A translucent, soft blue variety of microcrystalline quartz whose color comes from light scattering through its fine structure.

mineral
Sardonyx

Sardonyx

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

gemstone
Black Onyx

Black Onyx

A solid jet-black chalcedony, usually a dyed and treated agate, prized for sleek polished beads, cabochons, and intaglios.

gemstone
Carnelian

Carnelian

A warm orange-to-red variety of chalcedony quartz colored by iron oxide, used since antiquity for seals, beads, and cabochons.

gemstone
Onyx

Onyx

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

gemstone
Gem Silica

Gem Silica

A rare, intensely blue chalcedony colored by copper-rich chrysocolla, prized as the most valuable of the blue chalcedonies.

gemstone
Woodbine Jasper

Woodbine Jasper

An earthy-toned jasper with vine-like or scenic patterning, valued by lapidaries for warm browns, reds, and creams that polish to a smooth finish.

gemstone
Feather Jasper

Feather Jasper

A jasper marked with soft feather- or plume-like mineral inclusions that drift through a pale silica body.

mineral
Snakeskin Jasper

Snakeskin Jasper

An opaque patterned jasper named for its scaly, snakeskin-like surface markings of interlocking tan and brown cells.

mineral
Deschutes Jasper

Deschutes Jasper

A prized Oregon picture jasper from the Deschutes region known for soft scenic landscapes in cream, tan, and blue-gray.

mineral
Flame Jasper

Flame Jasper

A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.

mineral
Silver Leaf Jasper

Silver Leaf Jasper

A gray-toned jasper with swirling cream, black, and brown leaf-like patterns, sometimes with druzy or agate pockets.

mineral
Bloodstone

Bloodstone

A dark green chalcedony speckled with blood-red spots of iron oxide, traditionally known as heliotrope.

gemstone
Ocean Jasper

Ocean Jasper

A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.

sedimentary