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.

Bekily Garnet

A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.

gemstone
Websterite

Websterite

A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.

igneous
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
Strawberry Garnet

Strawberry Garnet

A bright strawberry-red garnet, typically an almandine-pyrope blend prized for its juicy, lively red color in jewelry.

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
Peach Garnet

Peach Garnet

A soft peach to pinkish-orange garnet, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for its warm, delicate color.

gemstone

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
Tactite

Tactite

A contact-metasomatic calc-silicate rock, essentially a skarn, formed where intrusions react with carbonate rocks and often host ore.

metamorphic

Masasi Blue Garnet

Masasi Blue Garnet is a rare vanadium-bearing color-change garnet from Tanzania that appears blue-green by day and purplish-red indoors.

gemstone

Grape Garnet

A trademarked deep purple-red rhodolite garnet from India, named for its rich grape-like color from the pyrope-almandine series.

gemstone
Raspberry Garnet

Raspberry Garnet

A vivid pinkish-red rhodolite garnet named for its raspberry color, a bright pyrope-almandine blend popular in jewelry.

gemstone
Biggs Jasper

Biggs Jasper

A classic Oregon picture jasper showing layered tan, brown, and blue-grey scenes resembling desert landscapes and canyons.

mineral

Bird's Eye Jasper

A microcrystalline quartz jasper marked by small concentric ring or eye patterns that resemble the eyes of birds.

mineral
Color Change Garnet

Color Change Garnet

A rare garnet that dramatically shifts color from greenish in daylight to reddish under lamplight, rivaling alexandrite.

gemstone
Champagne Garnet

Champagne Garnet

A soft brownish-golden garnet named for its champagne color, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for warm, neutral tones.

gemstone
Pyroxenite

Pyroxenite

A dense, dark ultramafic plutonic rock composed almost entirely of pyroxene minerals, often associated with peridotite and layered intrusions.

igneous
Tangerine Quartz

Tangerine Quartz

Clear quartz coated with orange-red hematite, giving points a vivid tangerine color, mainly from Brazil.

crystal
Leopard Skin Jasper

Leopard Skin Jasper

A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.

sedimentary

Star Moonstone

A rare moonstone that shows a four-rayed star of light (asterism) across its domed surface along with adularescence.

gemstone
Minette

Minette

A dark, mica-rich lamprophyre dike rock in which biotite and augite phenocrysts sit in a groundmass dominated by alkali feldspar.

igneous
Lindi Garnet

Lindi Garnet

Lindi Garnet is a rare vanadium-rich color-change garnet from Tanzania's Lindi region, shifting from blue-green daylight tones to purple-red.

gemstone
Spessartite Garnet

Spessartite Garnet

A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.

gemstone
Vogesite

Vogesite

A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.

igneous
Pyrargyrite

Pyrargyrite

A silver antimony sulfosalt known as dark ruby silver, an important silver ore with deep red internal reflections.

mineral