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.

Luxullianite

A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.

igneous
Watermelon Tourmaline

Watermelon Tourmaline

A striking color-zoned tourmaline with a pink center and green rind, resembling a slice of watermelon when cut across the crystal.

gemstone

Malaia Garnet

A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.

gemstone
Botswana Agate

Botswana Agate

A finely banded agate from Botswana known for delicate parallel layers of grey, pink, and white.

mineral

Lotus Garnet

A delicate pinkish-purple to peach garnet from Tanzania, a pyrope-spessartine blend named for the soft colors of a lotus flower.

gemstone
Fossiliferous Limestone

Fossiliferous Limestone

Calcium-carbonate sedimentary rock packed with visible fossils, recording ancient marine life within an easily scratched, fizzing matrix.

sedimentary
Tourmaline Schist

Tourmaline Schist

A foliated schist threaded with black tourmaline (schorl) needles, marking boron-rich metamorphic or metasomatic conditions.

metamorphic
Raspberry Garnet

Raspberry Garnet

A vivid pinkish-red rhodolite garnet named for its raspberry color, a bright pyrope-almandine blend popular in jewelry.

gemstone
Limburgite

Limburgite

A dark, glass-rich volcanic rock of olivine and augite phenocrysts set in a feldspar-free glassy groundmass, named from the Kaiserstuhl region.

igneous
Paraiba Tourmaline

Paraiba Tourmaline

An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline famed for its electric neon blue-green color and extreme rarity and value.

gemstone
Vanadium Tourmaline

Vanadium Tourmaline

Vanadium-colored tourmaline, including the species vanadium dravite, producing rich emerald-green hues similar to chrome tourmaline.

mineral
Garnet Schist

Garnet Schist

A shiny, foliated schist studded with red garnet crystals that grew during medium-grade regional metamorphism.

metamorphic
Cherry Opal

Cherry Opal

A translucent red opal, closely related to Mexican fire opal, glowing with a warm cherry-red body color often free of play-of-color.

gemstone

Chrome Spessartine

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

gemstone
Neon Blue Tourmaline

Neon Blue Tourmaline

An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline whose electric neon-blue color makes it one of the most valuable gems in the world.

gemstone
Glaucophane Schist

Glaucophane Schist

A blue, high-pressure metamorphic schist rich in glaucophane, the classic rock of subduction zones, also known as blueschist.

metamorphic

Mahenge Garnet

Mahenge Garnet is a pyrope-spessartine gem from Tanzania's Mahenge region, prized for vivid pink, purple, and color-change tones.

gemstone
Moonstone

Moonstone

A feldspar gem famous for adularescence, a floating blue-white glow that shimmers across the stone like moonlight.

gemstone

Peach Opal

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

gemstone
Pastel Tourmaline

Pastel Tourmaline

A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.

gemstone
Red Tourmaline

Red Tourmaline

Vivid red to raspberry tourmaline, the most intense colors are marketed as rubellite, colored by manganese in the elbaite structure.

gemstone
Danburite

Danburite

A glassy calcium borosilicate forming wedge-tipped prismatic crystals, usually colorless to pale yellow or pink, sometimes faceted as a gem.

crystal

Apricot Tourmaline

A warm apricot to peachy orange-pink elbaite tourmaline colored mainly by manganese, prized for its soft, glowing warmth.

gemstone
Syenite

Syenite

A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.

igneous