Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Exotica Jasper
Also called Sci-Fi Jasper, a Mexican jasper-rhyolite with swirling abstract patterns in cream, tan, gray, pink, and green.
gemstone
Pipestone
A soft, fine-grained red metamorphosed claystone, sacred to many Native American peoples and carved into ceremonial pipes.
metamorphic
Cobra Jasper
A banded jasper with cream, tan, and brown layers resembling snakeskin, often sourced from Madagascar.
mineral
Rainforest Jasper
An Australian green rhyolite with eye-like orbs and earthy patterns marketed as jasper, evoking dense rainforest foliage.
igneous
Black Jasper
A dense, opaque black variety of microcrystalline quartz historically used as a touchstone for testing precious metals.
mineral
Latite
The fine-grained volcanic equivalent of monzonite, an intermediate lava with nearly equal feldspars and little free quartz.
igneous
Carnelian
A warm orange-to-red variety of chalcedony quartz colored by iron oxide, used since antiquity for seals, beads, and cabochons.
gemstone
Needle Tourmaline
Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.
mineral
Brandberg Amethyst
A prized Namibian quartz combining amethyst, smoky, and clear quartz in single crystals, often with phantoms and enhydros.
crystal
Blue Apatite
A blue calcium phosphate mineral with vivid color and middling hardness, the same mineral family that forms bones and teeth.
mineral
Zebra Agate
A banded chalcedony agate with bold alternating dark and light stripes resembling zebra markings, sometimes color-enhanced.
gemstone
Crowley Ridge Agate
Agate found in the gravels of Crowley's Ridge in northeastern Arkansas, a stream-transported banded chalcedony.
gemstone
Silver Leaf Jasper
A gray-toned jasper with swirling cream, black, and brown leaf-like patterns, sometimes with druzy or agate pockets.
mineral
Mustard Jasper
A warm mustard-to-ochre yellow jasper colored by iron, valued by lapidaries for its rich, earthy golden tone.
gemstone
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentary
Shale
The most common sedimentary rock, a fissile mudrock of compacted clay and silt that splits into thin layers.
sedimentary
Poppy Jasper
An orbicular jasper with red and orange flower-like spots resembling poppies, famously from Morgan Hill, California.
mineral
Blue Goldstone
A man-made glittering glass colored deep blue with cobalt and studded with tiny copper crystals that mimic a starry night sky.
gemstone
Dalmatian Jasper
A cream-colored spotted stone resembling a Dalmatian dog, made of feldspar and quartz dotted with dark mineral grains.
igneous
Turquoise
A prized blue to blue-green copper-aluminium phosphate, often veined with dark matrix, treasured for jewelry across many cultures.
mineral
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphic
Green Jasper
An opaque green variety of chalcedony quartz colored by iron and chlorite-group inclusions, prized as a durable carving and cabochon stone.
mineral
Tonalite
A quartz-rich plutonic rock dominated by plagioclase feldspar with little alkali feldspar, closely related to granodiorite and quartz diorite.
igneous