Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Chert

A hard, fine-grained sedimentary silica rock that breaks with sharp conchoidal edges, prized by ancient toolmakers.

An opaque blue variety of chalcedony jasper, less common than red or green forms, colored by mineral inclusions.

A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.

A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock built from the microscopic silica skeletons of radiolarians, often forming colorful ribbon-banded cherts.

A hard, dark variety of chert that knaps into razor-sharp edges and sparks against steel, central to Stone Age technology.

An opaque grey-brown common opal forming nodules and concretions, historically called liver opal for its dull brownish color.

Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.

A coarse sedimentary rock of rounded pebbles and gravel cemented in a finer matrix, recording ancient rivers and beaches.

Rounded nodules of translucent obsidian, named after a Native American legend, that glow smoky brown when held to light.

A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.

A conglomerate altered by heat and pressure, often with its rounded pebbles stretched and flattened into elongated lenses.

A lithified glacial till, a poorly sorted rock of mixed boulders, pebbles and fine matrix that records ancient glaciations.

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

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