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.

Blue Jasper

Blue Jasper

An opaque blue variety of chalcedony jasper, less common than red or green forms, colored by mineral inclusions.

mineral

Exotica Jasper

Also called Sci-Fi Jasper, a Mexican jasper-rhyolite with swirling abstract patterns in cream, tan, gray, pink, and green.

gemstone
Owyhee Jasper

Owyhee Jasper

A picture jasper from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for scenic tan, cream, and blue-grey landscape patterns.

mineral
Deschutes Jasper

Deschutes Jasper

A prized Oregon picture jasper from the Deschutes region known for soft scenic landscapes in cream, tan, and blue-gray.

mineral
White Garnet

White Garnet

The rare colorless-to-white grossular garnet, also called leuco garnet, prized by collectors for its purity and unusual lack of color.

gemstone
Honey Garnet

Honey Garnet

A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.

gemstone
Chocolate Garnet

Chocolate Garnet

A rich brown variety of andradite (or grossular-andradite) garnet, marketed for its warm chocolate color and notable brilliance.

gemstone
Rosolite Garnet

Rosolite Garnet

A rose-pink variety of grossular garnet from Mexico, also known as landerite or xalostocite, prized for its soft pink color.

gemstone

Jet

A lightweight black organic gemstone formed from fossilized wood under pressure, a type of lignite long used in mourning jewelry.

sedimentary

Leuco Garnet

The rare colorless variety of grossular garnet, a near-flawless transparent gem free of the iron and chromium that color most garnets.

gemstone
Tsavorite Garnet

Tsavorite Garnet

A brilliant green grossular garnet colored by chromium and vanadium, rivaling emerald with superior brilliance and durability.

gemstone

Cobalt Blue Obsidian

A deep cobalt-blue glass sold as obsidian; intense blue body color is manufactured, as natural obsidian does not form bright blue glass.

igneous
Demantoid Garnet

Demantoid Garnet

A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.

gemstone
Lotus Jasper

Lotus Jasper

A softly patterned jasper in cream, gray, and tan whose markings can suggest lotus petals, popular for calm, neutral-toned jewelry.

gemstone
Black Garnet

Black Garnet

An opaque black garnet — typically titanium-bearing melanite andradite — historically cut for mourning and Victorian jewelry.

gemstone

Outback Jasper

An earthy Australian-style jasper in red, ochre, and yellow tones evoking the colors of the Outback desert.

mineral
Smithsonite

Smithsonite

Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.

mineral
Pyromorphite

Pyromorphite

A lead phosphate secondary mineral known for barrel-shaped green to yellow crystals formed in oxidized lead deposits.

mineral
Flame Agate

Flame Agate

A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.

gemstone
Millerite

Millerite

A nickel sulfide famous for delicate brass-yellow hairlike crystals that form radiating sprays inside cavities and geodes.

mineral
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

Macusanite

A rare translucent yellow-green volcanic glass from the Macusani region of Peru, valued by faceters and sometimes confused with tektites.

igneous
Fire Opal

Fire Opal

A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.

gemstone

Flame Jasper

A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.

mineral