Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Orange Obsidian

Obsidian colored orange by iron oxide inclusions; vivid uniform orange material is frequently manufactured glass rather than volcanic.

A fine-grained, silica-rich volcanic rock that is the extrusive equivalent of granite, often pale, banded, or flow-textured.

A hard, fine-grained sedimentary silica rock that breaks with sharp conchoidal edges, prized by ancient toolmakers.

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

A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.

A solid jet-black chalcedony, usually a dyed and treated agate, prized for sleek polished beads, cabochons, and intaglios.

A vivid green chalcedony colored by chromium, often called mtorolite, resembling chrysoprase but owing its color to chromium rather than nickel.

A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, classically black or black-and-white, long favored for cameos and beads.

A banded chalcedony combining reddish-brown sard with white or black onyx layers, prized since antiquity for carved cameos.

A rare, intensely blue chalcedony colored by copper-rich chrysocolla, prized as the most valuable of the blue chalcedonies.

A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.

Quartz containing a sealed pocket of ancient water, often with a mobile air bubble that moves when the crystal is tilted.

A common opal containing moss- or fern-like mineral inclusions that resemble plants suspended in a pale silica body.

Ancient wood whose organic tissue has been replaced by silica, preserving the grain, rings, and structure of the original tree in stone.

A translucent, soft blue variety of microcrystalline quartz whose color comes from light scattering through its fine structure.