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.

Blue Line Jasper

A pale jasper crossed by distinctive blue-gray veins or lines, valued by lapidaries for its calm color contrast.

gemstone

Peanut Wood Jasper

A fossilized, silicified wood from Australia with white peanut-shaped spots, formed where ancient driftwood was bored by clams and filled with pale sediment.

gemstone

Sea Sediment Jasper

A colorful trade-name material, often dyed and reconstituted, sold as jasper; vivid blues and greens are typically artificially enhanced.

mineral

Starry Night Jasper

A dark jasper trade stone speckled with pale flecks resembling a starry night sky, valued for its cosmic appearance.

mineral

Owyhee Blue Jasper

A soft blue-gray jasper from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for its rare, calming blue tones among earthy jaspers.

gemstone

Willow Creek Jasper

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

mineral
Leopard Skin Jasper

Leopard Skin Jasper

A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.

sedimentary
Cave Creek Jasper

Cave Creek Jasper

An opaque jasper from the Cave Creek area of Arizona, prized for earthy mottled and banded patterns in warm desert tones.

mineral

Frog Skin Jasper

A mottled green jasper whose blotchy spotting resembles frog skin, valued by lapidaries for its earthy, camouflage-like patterns.

gemstone
Mahogany Obsidian

Mahogany Obsidian

A natural volcanic glass with rich brown and black mahogany-like swirls created by iron oxide inclusions.

igneous
Menilite Opal

Menilite Opal

An opaque grey-brown common opal forming nodules and concretions, historically called liver opal for its dull brownish color.

mineral

Pigeon Blood Agate

A richly colored red banded agate prized by lapidaries for its deep crimson-to-brown tones reminiscent of pigeon's blood.

gemstone

Sardonyx

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

gemstone
Bloodstone

Bloodstone

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

gemstone
Mookaite

Mookaite

A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.

mineral
Jaspillite

Jaspillite

A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.

metamorphic

Sard

A brownish-red to deep brown variety of chalcedony, closely related to carnelian but darker, colored by iron oxides.

mineral

Cherry Obsidian

A vivid cherry-red glass sold as obsidian; the bright transparent red color is manufactured, as natural obsidian only shows dull red-brown mahogany tones.

igneous
Tiger Iron

Tiger Iron

A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.

metamorphic
Brown Obsidian

Brown Obsidian

Obsidian colored brown by iron oxide inclusions, frequently banded or swirled with black as in mahogany obsidian.

igneous
Turritella Agate

Turritella Agate

A brown fossiliferous chalcedony packed with spiral freshwater snail shells, technically agatized fossil rock from Wyoming.

sedimentary
Porcelanite

Porcelanite

A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.

sedimentary
Red Garnet

Red Garnet

The classic deep-red garnet — usually almandine or pyrope — long worn as the fiery 'carbuncle' gem and January's birthstone.

gemstone

Red Sandstone

Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.

sedimentary