Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Aurora Obsidian

A trade name for rainbow-sheen obsidian whose aligned nanoparticles produce shifting aurora-like bands of color.

Rhodochrosite is a rose-pink manganese carbonate prized for raspberry-red crystals and banded pink-and-white gem material.

A warmly colored chalcedony agate with reds, oranges, golds, and pinks that blend like the glowing bands of a sunset sky.

Green tourmaline cut as a cabochon to show a sharp moving band of light (chatoyancy) caused by fine parallel inclusions.

A landscape-patterned Chinese jasper prized for warm cherry-red, cream, and green bands resembling painted scenery.

Obsidian formed from two merged lava flows, producing a stone with two distinct bands of sheen or color.

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

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

Pink beryl (morganite) that shows chatoyancy, a moving band of light, when cut as a cabochon, thanks to parallel tube inclusions.

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

A red-toned banded chalcedony colored by iron oxides, ranging from natural carnelian-like reds to heat-treated stones.

A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.

A fortification agate from the Black Hills of South Dakota, known for tight, colorful banding closely related to the famous Fairburn agate.

An opal cut to show chatoyancy, a sharp moving band of light like a cat's eye, usually in honey, green or yellow common opal.