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.

Riband Agate

A banded chalcedony with straight, ribbon-like parallel layers, often cut across the bands for striking striped cabochons.

gemstone
Teal Tourmaline

Teal Tourmaline

A sought-after elbaite tourmaline in teal hues that blend blue and green, prized for its ocean-like color.

gemstone
Poppy Jasper

Poppy Jasper

An orbicular jasper with red and orange flower-like spots resembling poppies, famously from Morgan Hill, California.

mineral
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
Orbicular Granite

Orbicular Granite

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

igneous
Plume Agate

Plume Agate

A translucent agate containing delicate three-dimensional feather- or plant-like plumes of mineral inclusions suspended in chalcedony.

gemstone

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

Dendritic Jasper

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

mineral
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
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
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