Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Star Garnet

A rare almandine garnet that displays a four- or six-rayed star (asterism) from oriented rutile inclusions; the state gem of Idaho.

A prized Idaho jasper known for porcelain-smooth pastel pinks, creams, and greens in soft swirling, orbicular patterns.

A landscape-patterned Chinese jasper prized for warm cherry-red, cream, and green bands resembling painted scenery.

A translucent Wyoming chalcedony filled with delicate black manganese dendrites that resemble tiny ferns, moss, or starbursts.

A banded jasper showing parallel ribbon-like stripes of contrasting color formed by layered silica and mineral deposition.

A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.

A deep green-and-black stromatolitic jasper, essentially Kambaba Jasper, with circular eye patterns resembling crocodile skin.

A peralkaline rhyolite, a silica-rich volcanic rock with excess alkalis, named for San Pietro Island's Comende district.

Boulder opal from the Quilpie district of Queensland, Australia, with bright color set in dark ironstone matrix.

A fine-grained clastic rock of silt-sized grains, intermediate between sandstone and mudstone, with a gritty feel.

An earthy olive to yellowish-green tourmaline, a muted green-brown gem variety colored by iron with subtle warm undertones.

Glacially transported banded agates found along Lake Huron's shores, typically small, frosted pebbles with red-orange iron banding.

A deep, rich forest-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite) colored mainly by iron, with strong pleochroism and excellent durability.

A hydrous, iron-rich garnet of the hydrogarnet group in which hydroxyl groups substitute for silica within the andradite structure.