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.

Milk Opal

An opaque to translucent milky-white common opal valued for its soft porcelain-like color rather than play-of-color.

gemstone
Cactus Quartz

Cactus Quartz

A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in a cactus-like crust of tiny secondary points, also called spirit quartz.

crystal
Lime Green Tourmaline

Lime Green Tourmaline

A bright, fresh lime to yellowish-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite), colored by iron and trace manganese for a lively spring-green tone.

gemstone
Sagenite Agate

Sagenite Agate

A chalcedony agate filled with radiating needle-like mineral inclusions, prized for its starburst and spray patterns.

gemstone
Cat's Eye Tourmaline

Cat's Eye Tourmaline

Tourmaline displaying chatoyancy, a moving band of light caused by parallel tube-like inclusions, when cut as a cabochon.

gemstone
Moss Opal

Moss Opal

A common opal containing moss- or fern-like mineral inclusions that resemble plants suspended in a pale silica body.

gemstone
Pietersite

Pietersite

A brecciated, chatoyant quartz with swirling blue, gold, and brown fibers that shimmer like a stormy sky.

gemstone
Plume Agate

Plume Agate

A translucent agate containing delicate three-dimensional feather- or plant-like plumes of mineral inclusions suspended in chalcedony.

gemstone

Flame Obsidian

Black volcanic glass that flashes flame-like bands of iridescent color when light strikes aligned nanoscale inclusions.

igneous
Tree Agate

Tree Agate

A white chalcedony filled with green or black dendritic, tree-like mineral inclusions that resemble ferns or moss frozen in stone.

gemstone
Felsite

Felsite

A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.

igneous
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
Flower Agate

Flower Agate

A creamy pink-and-white chalcedony from Madagascar containing flower-like plume inclusions that resemble blossoms suspended in stone.

gemstone
Cat's Eye Beryl

Cat's Eye Beryl

Beryl displaying chatoyancy, a bright moving band of light, caused by parallel tube-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.

gemstone

Cat's Eye Aquamarine

Aquamarine that shows a bright moving band of light, or cat's eye, caused by parallel needle-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.

gemstone

Lemurian Seed Quartz

Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.

crystal
Hawk's Eye

Hawk's Eye

The blue-grey relative of tiger's eye, a chatoyant quartz showing a shifting band of light like a bird of prey's eye.

gemstone
Herkimer Diamond

Herkimer Diamond

Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.

crystal
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
Peacock Ore

Peacock Ore

A copper-iron sulfide ore famous for its iridescent peacock-like purple and blue tarnish; often sold as treated chalcopyrite.

mineral