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

A fine-grained sedimentary rock of compacted clay and silt that, unlike shale, breaks in blocks rather than thin layers.

A very fine-grained, mud-sized limestone formed from carbonate mud, smooth and dense with conchoidal fracture.

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.

The most common sedimentary rock, a fissile mudrock of compacted clay and silt that splits into thin layers.

Hardened, fine-grained mudrock intermediate between shale and slate, dense and non-fissile, often carved into ornaments.

A soft, earthy sedimentary rock made of a mixture of calcium carbonate and clay, intermediate between limestone and mudstone.

A very fine-grained limestone made of microcrystalline calcite mud, dense and smooth, deposited in calm carbonate settings.

A very fine-grained sedimentary rock made mostly of clay minerals, smooth to the touch and lacking the gritty feel of siltstone.

A dark, organic-rich shale loaded with kerogen and bitumen that can yield oil and gas, often finely laminated and combustible.

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

A fine-grained clastic rock of silt-sized grains, intermediate between sandstone and mudstone, with a gritty feel.

A foliated metamorphic rock dominated by glittering dark biotite mica, formed from mudstones under medium-grade regional metamorphism.