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.

Purple-Pink Tourmaline

Purple-Pink Tourmaline

Elbaite tourmaline in purplish-pink to magenta hues, colored by manganese, prized for its vivid orchid-like tones.

gemstone

Calico Obsidian

A mottled, multicolored obsidian blending black, brown, grey, and tan patches like a calico cat's patchwork coat.

igneous
Granulite

Granulite

A high-grade metamorphic rock formed in the deep, hot crust, marked by anhydrous minerals like pyroxene and garnet.

metamorphic
Trapiche Tourmaline

Trapiche Tourmaline

A rare tourmaline showing a fixed wheel-like pattern of color zones and arms radiating from the crystal's center.

gemstone
Orbicular Granite

Orbicular Granite

A rare granitic rock containing concentric, onion-like spheres called orbicules, prized as a striking ornamental stone.

igneous
Bismuthinite

Bismuthinite

A soft lead-gray bismuth sulfide that is an important ore of bismuth, forming metallic needle-like and bladed crystals.

mineral

Lemurian Seed Quartz

Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.

crystal

Flame Obsidian

Black volcanic glass that flashes flame-like bands of iridescent color when light strikes aligned nanoscale inclusions.

igneous
Hawk's Eye

Hawk's Eye

The blue-grey relative of tiger's eye, a chatoyant quartz showing a shifting band of light like a bird of prey's eye.

gemstone
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
Pineapple Opal

Pineapple Opal

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

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
Chrome Tourmaline

Chrome Tourmaline

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

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
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