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.

Flame Opal

A glowing orange-to-red opal whose warm body color resembles flame; some stones add flashes of play-of-color.

gemstone
Tangerine Quartz

Tangerine Quartz

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

crystal
Garnet Schist

Garnet Schist

A shiny, foliated schist studded with red garnet crystals that grew during medium-grade regional metamorphism.

metamorphic
Raspberry Tourmaline

Raspberry Tourmaline

A vivid raspberry-pink to pinkish-red elbaite tourmaline, a bright, cheerful member of the rubellite family colored by manganese.

gemstone
Pezzottaite

Pezzottaite

A rare cesium-rich, beryl-related gem mineral with a raspberry-pink color, first found in Madagascar in 2002.

gemstone
Bohemian Garnet

Bohemian Garnet

Small, intensely red chrome-pyrope garnets from the Czech Bohemian region, famous for densely set antique Victorian jewelry.

gemstone
Needle Tourmaline

Needle Tourmaline

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

mineral
Calc-Silicate Rock

Calc-Silicate Rock

A metamorphic rock of calcium-rich silicate minerals formed from impure limestone or dolomite altered by heat and fluids.

metamorphic
Unakite

Unakite

An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.

metamorphic
Color-Change Tourmaline

Color-Change Tourmaline

A rare tourmaline that visibly changes color between daylight and incandescent light, similar to the alexandrite effect.

gemstone
Proustite

Proustite

A scarlet-red silver arsenic sulfide known as light ruby silver, a striking but light-sensitive ore that darkens on exposure.

mineral
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
Andesine-Labradorite

Andesine-Labradorite

An intermediate plagioclase feldspar spanning andesine and labradorite, marketed as a red-to-green gem, much of which is copper-diffusion treated.

gemstone
Turritella Agate

Turritella Agate

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

sedimentary

Montana Garnet

Montana Garnet is red almandine recovered from Montana placer gravels, often alongside the state's famous sapphires.

gemstone
Color Change Garnet

Color Change Garnet

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

gemstone
Cape Ruby

Cape Ruby

Cape Ruby is a deep red pyrope garnet from South African diamond deposits, prized as an affordable, fiery alternative to ruby.

gemstone

Owyhee Blue Agate

A soft sky-blue chalcedony from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for its calming, opaque powder-blue color.

gemstone

Strawberry Obsidian

A pink-red glass sold as obsidian, sometimes with metallic flecks; the strawberry color is manufactured rather than a natural volcanic glass tone.

igneous
Lake Michigan Agate

Lake Michigan Agate

Glacially deposited banded agates found along Lake Michigan beaches, small waterworn pebbles with concentric red and grey banding.

gemstone

Lake Huron Agate

Glacially transported banded agates found along Lake Huron's shores, typically small, frosted pebbles with red-orange iron banding.

gemstone
Sapphire

Sapphire

The gem variety of corundum in every color except red, most prized in velvety blue and exceptionally hard and durable.

gemstone
Tillite

Tillite

A lithified glacial till, a poorly sorted rock of mixed boulders, pebbles and fine matrix that records ancient glaciations.

sedimentary
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