Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Feather Jasper
A jasper marked with soft feather- or plume-like mineral inclusions that drift through a pale silica body.
mineral
Elestial Quartz
A quartz with a complex skeletal, layered surface of many terminations and etched recesses, also called skeletal or jacare quartz.
crystalLake Huron Agate
Glacially transported banded agates found along Lake Huron's shores, typically small, frosted pebbles with red-orange iron banding.
gemstoneMocha Agate
A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.
gemstone
Dendritic Agate
A translucent chalcedony decorated with branching, fern-like manganese or iron oxide inclusions resembling tiny plants.
mineral
Brown Obsidian
Obsidian colored brown by iron oxide inclusions, frequently banded or swirled with black as in mahogany obsidian.
igneous
Blue Goldstone
A man-made glittering glass colored deep blue with cobalt and studded with tiny copper crystals that mimic a starry night sky.
gemstoneWoodbine 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.
gemstoneSilver Leaf Jasper
A gray-toned jasper with swirling cream, black, and brown leaf-like patterns, sometimes with druzy or agate pockets.
mineralSardonyx
A banded chalcedony combining reddish-brown sard with white or black onyx layers, prized since antiquity for carved cameos.
gemstoneLizard Skin Jasper
A patterned jasper whose scaly, net-like markings recall reptile skin, popular with lapidaries for its organic camouflage look.
gemstoneFrost Agate
A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.
gemstone
Flame Agate
A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.
gemstoneBronze Sheen Obsidian
Black volcanic glass with a warm bronze or coppery sheen produced by light reflecting off aligned microscopic inclusions.
igneous
Graphic Feldspar
A pegmatite rock of feldspar intergrown with wedge-shaped quartz that resembles ancient runic or Hebrew writing.
igneous
Feldspathic Sandstone
A feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that points to granitic source rocks eroded quickly in dry or cold climates.
sedimentary
Purple Obsidian
Purple-colored volcanic glass; genuine natural purple obsidian is rare, with much purple obsidian being manufactured colored glass.
crystal
Tourmaline Schist
A foliated schist threaded with black tourmaline (schorl) needles, marking boron-rich metamorphic or metasomatic conditions.
metamorphicDragon Blood Jasper
A green-and-red ornamental stone of epidote and red piemontite or iron oxide, named for its dragon-skin coloring; not a true jasper.
metamorphic
Kambaba Jasper
A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.
sedimentary
Baddeleyite
A natural zirconium dioxide mineral, hard and refractory, valued as a zirconium source and prized for high-precision U-Pb dating.
mineralRainforest Jasper
An Australian green rhyolite with eye-like orbs and earthy patterns marketed as jasper, evoking dense rainforest foliage.
igneousUrtite
A pale, nepheline-dominated plutonic rock at the leucocratic end of the ijolite series, sometimes associated with major apatite ore deposits.
igneous
Lherzolite
The most common type of mantle peridotite, made of olivine with both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene, representing fertile upper-mantle rock.
igneous