Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
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
Snake Skin Agate
A chalcedony with a distinctive scaly, reptile-skin surface texture, typically in pale tan, pink, and gray tones.
gemstone
Ruin Agate
A fractured and re-cemented agate whose angular broken bands resemble crumbling walls and ruined cityscapes when polished.
gemstone
Aventurine
A translucent quartz speckled with glittery mineral inclusions that produce a shimmering aventurescence, most often green.
crystalMocha Agate
A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.
gemstone
Fire Agate
A rare brown chalcedony containing thin iron-oxide layers that produce flashing, fiery rainbow iridescence like trapped flames.
gemstone
Blue Lace Agate
A soft sky-blue banded chalcedony prized for its delicate, lace-like white and blue swirling patterns.
gemstone
Tree Agate
A white chalcedony filled with green or black dendritic, tree-like mineral inclusions that resemble ferns or moss frozen in stone.
gemstone
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineralGondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Prasiolite
A pale green variety of quartz, usually created by heat-treating amethyst, often marketed as green amethyst.
gemstone
Chevron Amethyst
A naturally banded quartz combining purple amethyst and white quartz in striking V-shaped chevron or zigzag patterns.
crystal
Mariposite
A green, gold-associated metamorphic rock made of chrome-rich mica and quartz, named for Mariposa County in California's gold country.
metamorphic
Latite
The fine-grained volcanic equivalent of monzonite, an intermediate lava with nearly equal feldspars and little free quartz.
igneous
Needle Tourmaline
Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.
mineral
Brandberg Amethyst
A prized Namibian quartz combining amethyst, smoky, and clear quartz in single crystals, often with phantoms and enhydros.
crystal
Sagenite Agate
A chalcedony agate filled with radiating needle-like mineral inclusions, prized for its starburst and spray patterns.
gemstone
Banded Agate
The classic agate defined by concentric or parallel bands of chalcedony in varied colors, the archetype of all agate varieties.
gemstone
White Agate
A white to grayish banded chalcedony, the natural base color of much agate and the substrate for many dyed stones.
gemstoneSuper Seven
A trade name for quartz containing a combination of seven minerals including amethyst, smoky quartz, and cacoxenite, prized by collectors.
crystal
Tonalite
A quartz-rich plutonic rock dominated by plagioclase feldspar with little alkali feldspar, closely related to granodiorite and quartz diorite.
igneous
Dumortierite
A hard aluminum borosilicate famous for its rich denim-blue color, often forming dense fibrous masses or coloring quartz blue.
mineralSardonyx
A banded chalcedony combining reddish-brown sard with white or black onyx layers, prized since antiquity for carved cameos.
gemstoneScenic Agate
A translucent agate whose mineral inclusions resemble miniature landscapes of trees, hills, and horizons within the stone.
gemstone