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 Agate

A purple-toned banded chalcedony, sometimes naturally amethystine but frequently produced by dyeing gray agate.

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

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

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

A collectible Oregon plume and scenic agate with feathery red and gold inclusions suspended in translucent chalcedony.

A chalcedony agate filled with radiating needle-like mineral inclusions, prized for its starburst and spray patterns.

A chalcedony agate with soft, billowing cloud-like masses of gray and white suspended in a translucent body.

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

Agate containing radiating sprays of mineral needles that fan out like bursting stars within the chalcedony.

A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.

A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.

A translucent chalcedony agate containing delicate, feather- or plume-shaped mineral inclusions that branch like soft feathers.

A warmly colored chalcedony agate with reds, oranges, golds, and pinks that blend like the glowing bands of a sunset sky.

A nodular rhyolite geode-like ball whose plain exterior hides a star-shaped agate or chalcedony core when cut.