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.

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.

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

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

A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.

A rare agate that forms naturally with flat polygonal faces and angular geometric shapes rather than the usual rounded nodule.

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

A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.

Agate that forms in flat cracks or veins of host rock rather than rounded nodules, producing straight, parallel banding.

A rare boron-bearing feldspar, the boron analogue of albite, first found in oil-shale nodules of the Green River Formation.

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