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
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
Idaho Star Garnet

Idaho Star Garnet

Idaho's official state gem: a dark almandine garnet showing a four- or rare six-rayed star from oriented rutile inclusions.

gemstone

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
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
Star Opal

Star Opal

Opal that displays a radiating, star-shaped pattern of play-of-color, a rare and prized internal structure.

gemstone
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
Ruby in Zoisite

Ruby in Zoisite

A striking rock of green zoisite studded with red-pink ruby crystals and black hornblende, also called anyolite.

metamorphic
Dalmatian Stone

Dalmatian Stone

A cream-colored feldspar-and-quartz rock peppered with dark spots, named for its resemblance to a Dalmatian dog.

igneous
Spherulitic Obsidian

Spherulitic Obsidian

Obsidian containing spherulites — small radiating spheres of feldspar and cristobalite that crystallized within the cooling volcanic glass.

igneous

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
Cordierite Hornfels

Cordierite Hornfels

A tough, fine-grained contact-metamorphic rock containing cordierite, often spotted, formed by heat from nearby igneous intrusions.

metamorphic

Dragon Blood Jasper

A green-and-red ornamental stone of epidote and red piemontite or iron oxide, named for its dragon-skin coloring; not a true jasper.

metamorphic
Snowflake Obsidian

Snowflake Obsidian

A black volcanic glass speckled with gray-white cristobalite snowflakes, formed as obsidian begins to crystallize.

igneous

Sonoran Sunset Jasper

A vivid copper-bearing Mexican stone of red cuprite and green chrysocolla that evokes a desert sunset.

mineral
Melanite Garnet

Melanite Garnet

The titanium-rich black variety of andradite garnet, with a brilliant resinous luster prized for mourning and statement jewelry.

gemstone

Outback Jasper

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

mineral
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