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.

Snake Skin Agate

Snake Skin Agate

A chalcedony with a distinctive scaly, reptile-skin surface texture, typically in pale tan, pink, and gray tones.

gemstone
Blue Lace Agate

Blue Lace Agate

A soft sky-blue banded chalcedony prized for its delicate, lace-like white and blue swirling patterns.

gemstone
Holley Blue Agate

Holley Blue Agate

A rare translucent lavender-blue agate from the Holley area of Oregon, prized for its soft purple-blue color.

gemstone

Swazi Lace Agate

A swirling, intricately banded lace agate from Eswatini (Swaziland) in soft greys, blues and lavenders with delicate folded patterns.

gemstone
Mexican Lace Agate

Mexican Lace Agate

A vividly swirling banded agate from northern Mexico with intricate looping patterns in warm reds, golds and creams.

gemstone
Lake Superior Agate

Lake Superior Agate

A glacier-transported banded agate from the Lake Superior region, colored by iron into rich reds and oranges, and Minnesota's state gemstone.

gemstone
Teepee Canyon Agate

Teepee Canyon Agate

A fortification agate from the Black Hills of South Dakota, known for tight, colorful banding closely related to the famous Fairburn agate.

gemstone

Dragon Vein Agate

A treated chalcedony with a network of crackled veins, usually heated and dyed in vivid colors for affordable, eye-catching beads.

gemstone

Crowley Ridge Agate

Agate found in the gravels of Crowley's Ridge in northeastern Arkansas, a stream-transported banded chalcedony.

gemstone

Green Sheen Obsidian

Black volcanic glass that flashes a green sheen at certain angles due to light interference off aligned microscopic inclusions.

igneous
Yellow-Green Obsidian

Yellow-Green Obsidian

A chartreuse yellow-green glass sold as obsidian; the bright color is manufactured and does not occur in natural volcanic glass.

igneous
Neon Green Tourmaline

Neon Green Tourmaline

An intensely glowing green tourmaline, often copper-bearing, whose electric, almost luminous color recalls paraiba tourmaline.

gemstone
Dark Green Tourmaline

Dark Green Tourmaline

Deeply saturated green tourmaline colored by iron, often so dark it appears nearly black until viewed in bright light.

gemstone
Forest Green Tourmaline

Forest Green Tourmaline

A deep, rich forest-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite) colored mainly by iron, with strong pleochroism and excellent durability.

gemstone
Cat's Eye Green Tourmaline

Cat's Eye Green Tourmaline

Green tourmaline cut as a cabochon to show a sharp moving band of light (chatoyancy) caused by fine parallel inclusions.

gemstone
Bloodstone

Bloodstone

A dark green chalcedony speckled with blood-red spots of iron oxide, traditionally known as heliotrope.

gemstone
Peat

Peat

A soft, spongy accumulation of partly decayed plant matter that forms in waterlogged bogs and is the first step toward coal.

sedimentary
Chalcedony

Chalcedony

A waxy, translucent microcrystalline form of quartz that serves as the parent group for agate, jasper, carnelian, and onyx.

mineral
Chrome Chalcedony

Chrome Chalcedony

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

gemstone
Landscape Opal

Landscape Opal

A common opal containing dendritic or mossy mineral inclusions that form miniature landscape-like scenes inside the stone.

gemstone
Mookaite

Mookaite

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

mineral
Unakite

Unakite

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

metamorphic
Dendritic Opal

Dendritic Opal

A common opal with branching, tree-like mineral inclusions that create natural fern, moss, or landscape patterns.

gemstone
Jaspillite

Jaspillite

A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.

metamorphic