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.

Dendritic Jasper

A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.

mineral
Faden Quartz

Faden Quartz

Tabular quartz crossed by a milky white thread-like line marking where the crystal repeatedly cracked and re-healed.

crystal

Lace Obsidian

Black volcanic glass laced with delicate web-like veins of contrasting color, formed by flow banding and fine crystallization.

igneous
Hydrogrossular Garnet

Hydrogrossular Garnet

A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.

gemstone

Flame Jasper

A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.

mineral
Pineapple Opal

Pineapple Opal

A rare opal pseudomorph from White Cliffs, Australia, formed as opal replaced clustered crystals into a pineapple-like shape.

gemstone
Tree Agate

Tree Agate

A white chalcedony filled with green or black dendritic, tree-like mineral inclusions that resemble ferns or moss frozen in stone.

gemstone
Jelly Opal

Jelly Opal

A translucent, gelatinous-looking opal whose transparency gives floating, glowing play-of-color a watery, jelly-like appearance.

gemstone
Porcelanite

Porcelanite

A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.

sedimentary

Jelly Garnet

Jelly Garnet is a translucent grossular garnet whose soft, glassy, gummy-looking body gives it a jelly-like appearance.

gemstone
Star Rose Quartz

Star Rose Quartz

Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.

gemstone
Mookaite

Mookaite

A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.

mineral
Cat's Eye Beryl

Cat's Eye Beryl

Beryl displaying chatoyancy, a bright moving band of light, caused by parallel tube-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.

gemstone
Schorlomite

Schorlomite

A lustrous black titanium-rich garnet of the andradite series, found in alkaline igneous rocks like nepheline syenite and ijolite.

mineral
Montana Moss Agate

Montana Moss Agate

A translucent chalcedony from Montana filled with black and red dendritic inclusions that look like moss, ferns, or scenic landscapes.

gemstone
Chrome Tourmaline

Chrome Tourmaline

An intensely green tourmaline colored by chromium and vanadium, prized for its vivid emerald-like color from East Africa.

gemstone
Flower Agate

Flower Agate

A creamy pink-and-white chalcedony from Madagascar containing flower-like plume inclusions that resemble blossoms suspended in stone.

gemstone

Spiderweb Jasper

A jasper crossed by fine dark veins forming a spiderweb-like network, often a brecciated stone cemented by darker matrix.

mineral
Desert Rose

Desert Rose

A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.

mineral
Ocean Jasper

Ocean Jasper

A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.

sedimentary
Strawberry Quartz

Strawberry Quartz

A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.

crystal
Bauxite

Bauxite

An earthy aluminum-rich residual rock and the world's principal ore of aluminum, often showing distinctive pea-like pisolites.

sedimentary
Herkimer Diamond

Herkimer Diamond

Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.

crystal
Red Agate

Red Agate

A red-toned banded chalcedony colored by iron oxides, ranging from natural carnelian-like reds to heat-treated stones.

gemstone