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.

Pyralspite Garnet

Pyralspite Garnet

Pyralspite is the aluminum garnet series uniting pyrope, almandine, and spessartine, covering most red, orange, and purple gem garnets.

mineral
Bixbyite

Bixbyite

A black metallic manganese iron oxide famous for sharp cubic crystals, classically found with red beryl and topaz in Utah rhyolite.

mineral
Garnet

Garnet

A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.

gemstone

Sunset Opal

An opal with warm sunset hues of orange, amber, and red, prized for its glowing fiery body color reminiscent of dusk skies.

gemstone
Lake Michigan Agate

Lake Michigan Agate

Glacially deposited banded agates found along Lake Michigan beaches, small waterworn pebbles with concentric red and grey banding.

gemstone

Syrian Garnet

Syrian Garnet is an old trade name for fine deep-red almandine, historically tied to the Syriam region and prized as 'precious garnet.'

gemstone
Kakortokite

Kakortokite

A spectacularly banded agpaitic nepheline syenite of alternating red eudialyte, black amphibole and white feldspar layers from Ilimaussaq, Greenland.

igneous
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

Lake Huron Agate

Glacially transported banded agates found along Lake Huron's shores, typically small, frosted pebbles with red-orange iron banding.

gemstone
Alexandrite

Alexandrite

A rare color-change chrysoberyl that appears green in daylight and red under incandescent light, sometimes called emerald by day, ruby by night.

gemstone

Masasi Blue Garnet

Masasi Blue Garnet is a rare vanadium-bearing color-change garnet from Tanzania that appears blue-green by day and purplish-red indoors.

gemstone

Arizona Ruby

Arizona Ruby is a chromium-rich pyrope garnet from Arizona, often gathered from anthills, valued for its intense ruby-like red.

gemstone
Adirondack Garnet

Adirondack Garnet

Adirondack Garnet is large, dark-red almandine from New York's Gore Mountain, the world's most famous industrial garnet abrasive source.

mineral
Eclogite

Eclogite

A dense, high-pressure metamorphic rock famous for its red garnets set in bright green pyroxene, formed deep within subduction zones.

metamorphic
Chrome Pyrope

Chrome Pyrope

A chromium-rich pyrope garnet whose intense blood-red color comes from chromium, often mined from ant hills and kimberlite weathering.

gemstone
Lindi Garnet

Lindi Garnet

Lindi Garnet is a rare vanadium-rich color-change garnet from Tanzania's Lindi region, shifting from blue-green daylight tones to purple-red.

gemstone

Bekily Garnet

A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.

gemstone
Spessartite Garnet

Spessartite Garnet

A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.

gemstone
Rutilated Quartz

Rutilated Quartz

Clear or smoky quartz threaded with golden to reddish needles of rutile, also poetically called Venus hair stone.

crystal
Monazite

Monazite

A reddish-brown rare-earth phosphate that is a primary ore of cerium, thorium and other rare-earth elements, often found in placer sands.

mineral