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.
sedimentary
Calcite
An extremely common calcium carbonate mineral that comes in nearly every color and shows strong double refraction in clear crystals.
mineral
Blue Calcite
A soft, soothing powder-blue variety of calcite, a common calcium carbonate mineral often sold as gentle tumbled stones.
mineral
Honey Calcite
A warm golden-to-amber variety of calcite, a soft calcium carbonate mineral valued for its honeyed glow and easy carving.
mineral
Green Calcite
A soft mint-to-apple-green variety of calcite, a common calcium carbonate mineral popular as soothing tumbled stones.
mineral
Orange Calcite
A soft, glowing orange variety of calcite colored by iron oxides, popular as tumbled stones and known for fizzing in acid.
mineral
Cipollino Marble
A green-and-white banded metamorphic marble whose wavy mica layers resemble the rings of a sliced onion.
metamorphic
Porcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentary
Flint
A hard, dark variety of chert that knaps into razor-sharp edges and sparks against steel, central to Stone Age technology.
sedimentary
Radiolarite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock built from the microscopic silica skeletons of radiolarians, often forming colorful ribbon-banded cherts.
sedimentarySparite
Coarse, clear-to-white crystalline calcite that cements limestones, contrasting with fine muddy micrite.
sedimentary
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineralAlabaster
A soft, fine-grained, translucent form of gypsum (or banded calcite) long prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
mineralOnyx Marble
Translucent banded calcium-carbonate stone deposited in caves and springs, prized for ornamental carvings despite its softness.
sedimentary
Micrite
A very fine-grained limestone made of microcrystalline calcite mud, dense and smooth, deposited in calm carbonate settings.
sedimentary
Aragonite
A calcium carbonate mineral and polymorph of calcite, aragonite forms distinctive needle clusters, sea shells, and pearls.
mineral
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentary
Marble
A metamorphosed limestone of interlocking calcite crystals, prized for sculpture and architecture for its workability and polish.
metamorphic
Iceland Spar
A transparent, optical-grade variety of calcite famous for strong double refraction, splitting images and light into two rays.
mineralPentelic Marble
The fine white marble of Mount Pentelikon used to build the Parthenon, famous for the golden patina it develops with age.
metamorphic
Banded Iron Formation
Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.
sedimentary
Fossiliferous Limestone
Calcium-carbonate sedimentary rock packed with visible fossils, recording ancient marine life within an easily scratched, fizzing matrix.
sedimentary
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphic
Chalk
A soft, white, fine-grained limestone made almost entirely of microscopic marine plankton skeletons.
sedimentary