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.

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
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
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

Mocha Agate

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

gemstone
Mandarin Garnet

Mandarin Garnet

The intensely glowing orange variety of spessartine garnet, prized for its pure 'Fanta-orange' fire and high brilliance.

gemstone
Spessartite Garnet

Spessartite Garnet

A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.

gemstone
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

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

Peach Opal

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

gemstone
Zebra Jasper

Zebra Jasper

A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.

sedimentary

Flame Opal

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

gemstone
Tangerine Quartz

Tangerine Quartz

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

crystal
Mexican Fire Opal

Mexican Fire Opal

A transparent to translucent opal prized for its glowing orange-to-red body color, mined chiefly in the volcanic highlands of Mexico.

gemstone

Peach Moonstone

A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.

gemstone

Chrome Spessartine

Chrome Spessartine is a rare chromium-bearing manganese garnet whose trace chromium intensifies its already vivid orange color.

gemstone
Sherry Tourmaline

Sherry Tourmaline

A warm sherry-brown to orange-brown tourmaline, usually magnesium-rich dravite, named for its rich fortified-wine color.

gemstone
Tube Agate

Tube Agate

A chalcedony agate containing hollow or mineral-filled tubes that appear as rods, circles, or pipes depending on the angle of the cut.

gemstone
Seam Agate

Seam Agate

Agate that forms in flat cracks or veins of host rock rather than rounded nodules, producing straight, parallel banding.

gemstone
Onyx

Onyx

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

gemstone
Honey Agate

Honey Agate

A warm golden to amber translucent chalcedony agate whose color and glow resemble honey, sometimes with banding.

gemstone
Cathedral Agate

Cathedral Agate

A banded agate whose internal structures resemble cathedral spires, arches, or a city skyline of towers and pinnacles.

gemstone

Bamboo Agate

An agate whose layered, segmented banding resembles the jointed stalks and leaves of bamboo.

gemstone