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.

Brazilian Agate

Brazilian Agate

Abundant banded chalcedony from southern Brazil, the world's main source of agate slices and dyed agate products.

gemstone

Coyamito Agate

A prized banded agate from Rancho Coyamito in Chihuahua, Mexico, known for eyes, pom-poms and vivid fortification.

gemstone
Yellow Agate

Yellow Agate

A yellow to golden banded chalcedony colored by iron, ranging from natural honey tones to dyed commercial stones.

gemstone
Fairburn Agate

Fairburn Agate

The state gemstone of South Dakota, a rare fortification agate known for tight, holly-leaf concentric banding.

gemstone
Dryhead Agate

Dryhead Agate

A banded fortification agate from the remote Dryhead area of south-central Montana, prized for warm concentric rings.

gemstone
Red Agate

Red Agate

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

gemstone
Purple Agate

Purple Agate

A purple-toned banded chalcedony, sometimes naturally amethystine but frequently produced by dyeing gray agate.

gemstone
Eye Agate

Eye Agate

A chalcedony agate marked by round, concentric ring patterns that resemble eyes when cut and polished.

gemstone
Fortification Agate

Fortification Agate

The classic agate pattern of angular concentric bands resembling the walls of a fort, found in agates worldwide.

gemstone
Porcelanite

Porcelanite

A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.

sedimentary
Mookaite

Mookaite

A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.

mineral
Ocean Jasper

Ocean Jasper

A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.

sedimentary
Mookaite Jasper

Mookaite Jasper

An Australian silicified radiolarite jasper in warm mustard, red, burgundy, and cream earth tones, found only in Western Australia.

sedimentary
Thunderegg Agate

Thunderegg Agate

A nodular rhyolite geode-like ball whose plain exterior hides a star-shaped agate or chalcedony core when cut.

gemstone
Septarian Concretion

Septarian Concretion

A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.

sedimentary
Bloodstone

Bloodstone

A dark green chalcedony speckled with blood-red spots of iron oxide, traditionally known as heliotrope.

gemstone

Polychrome Jasper

A warm earth-toned jasper from Madagascar in flowing reds, oranges and golds, also called desert jasper, discovered in the early 2000s.

gemstone
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
Turritella Agate

Turritella Agate

A brown fossiliferous chalcedony packed with spiral freshwater snail shells, technically agatized fossil rock from Wyoming.

sedimentary
Thulite

Thulite

A pink, manganese-rich variety of zoisite used as an ornamental gemstone, often mottled with white quartz and grey matrix.

gemstone
Needle Tourmaline

Needle Tourmaline

Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.

mineral
Prehnite

Prehnite

A translucent yellow-green silicate famous for its botryoidal 'grape' clusters, often hosting needle-like sprays of black epidote.

mineral
Moonstone

Moonstone

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

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