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
Paraiba Tourmaline

Paraiba Tourmaline

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

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
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
Danburite

Danburite

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

crystal
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

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