Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Dendritic Jasper
A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.
mineral
Leopard Skin Jasper
A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Feather Jasper
A jasper marked with soft feather- or plume-like mineral inclusions that drift through a pale silica body.
mineral
Moss Agate
A translucent chalcedony filled with green or brown dendritic mineral inclusions that resemble moss, foliage, or landscapes.
gemstone
Bloodstone
A dark green chalcedony speckled with blood-red spots of iron oxide, traditionally known as heliotrope.
gemstone
Moldavite
A rare forest-green natural glass formed by a meteorite impact about 15 million years ago, found mainly in the Czech Republic.
gemstone
Staurolite Schist
A mica schist studded with brown staurolite porphyroblasts, sometimes forming the cross-shaped twins known as fairy stones.
metamorphic
Monzonite
An intermediate plutonic rock with nearly equal alkali and plagioclase feldspar and very little quartz, sitting between diorite and syenite.
igneous
Turritella Jasper
A fossiliferous jasper packed with spiral snail shells, technically a silicified gastropod limestone from Wyoming.
sedimentary
Gary Green Jasper
An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.
mineral
Willow Creek Jasper
A prized Idaho jasper known for porcelain-smooth pastel pinks, creams, and greens in soft swirling, orbicular patterns.
mineral
Shungite
A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.
sedimentary
Soapstone
A soft, talc-rich metamorphic rock with a soapy feel, easily carved and highly heat-resistant for cookware and sculpture.
metamorphic
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary
Larvikite
A Norwegian intrusive rock whose feldspar crystals flash silvery-blue, widely used as blue pearl granite countertops.
igneous
Crocodile Jasper
A deep green-and-black stromatolitic jasper, essentially Kambaba Jasper, with circular eye patterns resembling crocodile skin.
mineral
Luxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneous
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Mocha Agate
A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.
gemstone
Needle Tourmaline
Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.
mineral
Dallasite Jasper
A green-and-white volcanic breccia from Vancouver Island, cemented by jasper and rich in epidote, popular as a regional lapidary stone.
gemstone
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneous
Anthracite
The highest-rank coal, a hard, lustrous black rock that burns cleanly with little smoke and high heat output.
metamorphic
Brandberg Amethyst
A prized Namibian quartz combining amethyst, smoky, and clear quartz in single crystals, often with phantoms and enhydros.
crystal